| Internet
Advertisement Explained : Part 2
What is Search Engine
Marketing ?
Search engines are primary vehicle for getting web-site
traffic. A visitor arrives at a web-site through any
of the following four ways:
- Search Engines and Directories
- Following an external link (other than search engine
or directory)
- Bookmark
- Direct navigation (typing web-site URL in browser)
It has been found that for most web-sites - search
engines and directories account for about half of total
"unique visitors". But in reality, this figure
is much higher as visitors who use bookmark or direct
navigation might have used a search engine to learn
about the web-site in first place. Obviously, search
engines play a major role in driving traffic to your
web-site and consequently success of your business over
Internet.
What is Search Engine Marketing ?
For most people Search engine marketing starts and ends
with high rank in search engine. However, in reality
- its far wider in scope. Search engine marketing is
an amalgamation of a complex set of activities that
result in more number of relevant visitors to a web-site.
The amalgamated activities include following processes:
- Organic Placement
- Targeted Advertisement
- Paid Inclusion
Organic Placement
This refers to submission of web-site to various search
engines. The rank of submitted web-site depends entirely
on how the search engine measures its relevance and
importance in respect of given keywords. There's stiff
competition among web-sites and the submitted web-site
must have the quality to beat others to occupy the top
slot.
In this process, a few keywords are selected that describe
the web-site's business or products to be promoted.
Next, web-site is 'optimized' for these keywords and
finally submitted to various search engines and directories.
At no stage does the web-site pays to search engine,
though it may have paid to SEO professionals for optimization
or other services.
Organic submission is successful when a visitor finds
the web-site at the top of search result while searching
with given keyword(s).
It should be noted here that any web-site that occupies
top slot in a search result solely does so by virtue
of its own merit. In other words, the search engine
must have found something very relevant and impressive
in the web-site to place it at the top of search result.
Anybody claiming to place any web-site at the top of
search engine through organic placement can do so either
by injecting really good content in the web-site so
that search engine picks it up for top rank or by fooling
the search engine to 'think' that the web-site has tremendous
content though in reality it does not have so.
There are many articles on optimization and submission
in previous issues of FAIDA. Interested readers may
visit FAIDA Archives for more information.
Targeted Advertisement
Most Search engines (Yahoo!, Google, Overture etc.)
accept small text advertisements that are positioned
at the top or alongside search results. In this mode,
advertiser selects keywords and buys position for his/her
text ad in search result for those keywords.
So, if your web-site deals with 'readymade garments'
- you may select relevant keywords like apparels, garments,
cotton garments, ladies dress etc. (for information
on how to select relevant keywords - please read earlier
issues of FAIDA). Whenever someone searches with any
of these keywords - your small text ad will appear at
the top or on right hand side of search result. This
way, you bypass rigorous organic placement route and
attract customers to your web-site. Unlike organic placement,
your web-site does not have to pass a test for relevance
to appear at the top of a search result.
As the text ads are displayed only against selected
keywords - this type of promotion is called "targeted
advertisement"
The position of a text ad in targeted advertisement
depends upon how much one is willing to pay. If there
is more than one advertiser for a given keyword (which
normally is the case) - advertisers bid for top position.
The more you bid - higher will be the position of your
text ad.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is a popular type of targeted advertisement
where advertiser pays for every click that his/her advertisement
gets. This is one of the easiest and most effective
methods available for marketing your web site. Google
Adwords and Overture Precision Match are the most used
of these programs.
Paid Inclusion
Getting listed in well known directory type search engines
(such as Yahoo, DMoz etc.) is extremely difficult as
thousands apply for inclusion everyday. Being directory,
these can accept only a handful from thousands of aspirants
- making inclusion that much tough and time consuming.
Some directories accept a fee for rapid inclusion,
others charge a fee for shortening examination time
to few days (but no guarantee on inclusion, listing
on merit only) while still others do not charge any
fee where all inclusions are free and strictly on merit
only.
Paid inclusion can ensure listing of a new web-site
in select directories at the shortest possible time
- thereby increasing its PageRank (PR) value and consequently
higher rank in search engines.
How Successful is Search Engine Marketing ?
Success of search engine marketing can be gauged by
various surveys and user responses. Most Internet surveys
now point out that visitors seldom go beyond third page
in any search result and chances of a click in first
page is as high as 58%. No wonder, there is a mad rush
among web-sites to rank higher and higher in search
engines.
But what about targeted advertisements. How successful
is it ?
Success of search engine marketing can be estimated
from advertiser response. I place here only one fact
for you to ponder:
Google has become bigger than Coca-Cola in only a few
short years. 99% of Google's revenue comes from search
advertising.
Happy and Productive Surfing
Dr. Amit K Chatterjee
Related Links:
Author
: Dr.
Amit K. Chatterjee
(Amit worked in blue-chip Indian and MNCs for 15
years in various capacities like Research and Information
Analysis, Market Development, MIS, R&D Information
Systems etc. before starting his e-commerce venture
in 1997. The views expressed in this columns are
of his own. |
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