Category Archives: Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing (SEM) including search engine optimisation for organic search results and Pay Per Click (PPC) online advertising.

Organic SEO and Adwords Management for Small Business

“I’ve been paying a company for months and I’m not seeing results”

There are good, bad and downright ugly search engine marketing companies out there.   I like to think Creative Mode is one of the good guys girls.  To qualify that statement,  sure some people just want to go the quick and dirty route (and that’s OK too if that’s what you want) but the way I like to do SEO (search engine marketing) is via best practice over the long term.  Profile building over time will deliver results far better for small business owners who tend to need more bang for their buck.  Organic SEO is close to my heart because that’s where I started many years ago but also, people trust it more.

So let me explain what the go is here.  Adwords vs Organic SEO.

Google Adwords Management

Let’s start with Google Adwords.  Often called pay-per-click advertising or PPC if you like acronyms.  This is about buying traffic.  Pure and simple advertising.  You pay to be seen.  You can pay more and you are seen more.  You stop paying and you disappear.   What people often don’t realise is that how much you pay depends on the quality of your website landing page.  The more relevant your website is to the advertising, the less you pay.  So anyone who is managing your Adwords advertising service really needs access to your website in order to do a good job.  Ideally you want your landing pages to be separate from your usual website navigation and you want to track conversions.  After all conversions are usually the goal not the traffic.

What’s involved in an Adwords campaign setup is (at the basic level): research the market, setup the landing pages, create campaigns, watch and adjust.  There’s a lot of work initially and this is very much dependant on knowledge of the business and the location they operate in and also whether it’s a fairly generic service or something specialist or with a very small niche market. Once everything is set up, there’s a time period of watching and learning, making small changes, adjusting bids, trying different ad copy and adding or removing keywords – basically getting to know the search market for that topic can take more or less time depending on the market.  After things are humming along you can just tweak it every now and then and keep an eye on conversions via reports.  Sometimes campaigns will be specific and time sensitive, other times you might just have a generic long running ad group.  How that works depends on your goals, your market and how aggressive your your chosen strategy is.

Organic Search Engine Optimisation and Marketing

Organic Search Marketing is so great for small business.  If you do this the right way you can literally obtain top five Google listings and sit there without having to continually pay for advertising.  Organic search marketing is about getting traffic to your website because it’s relevant to the search phrases people type in.  When your website is well-built and the content matches the search phrases, you can attract new visitors without having to pay for them.  Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of making your website match the search phrases and this can seem difficult and time consuming to those who don’t understand but it’s actually quite simple once you have your website set up.  It’s also just basic marketing (that you should really be doing anyway), but structured in a way that attracts visitors to your website.

What’s involved in organic search marketing is not rocket science.  At a basic level this is what you need: a well built website with the right structure; content that is relevant to your market and your targeted search phrases; fresh content regularly, links from social media sites to your content, links from other websites to yours.  If you have someone managing this for you they will no doubt start by whipping your existing website and content into shape to make sure it has that all important structure (this is the optimisation part).  This will help a little to start with and you can usually then see fairly quickly how much work is ahead depending on where your website sits in the results already.  The process of search engine marketing includes keyword research, content development and optimisation, regular new content creation, social media management and of course goals setup and reporting in Google Analytics so you can track and improve on results.

DIY Marketing or Hire a Professional?

There is certainly a lot of information available for free if you choose to learn to manage your Adwords and Organic SEO yourself but there is also a knack to it as with most things.  I am not a huge fan of DIY unless you already have marketing skills (and spare time to learn) because in my experience this is the slow path to business growth.  Hiring a professional to take care of these tasks is faster and more effective.

Search Engine Submissions

It is no longer necessary to submit your website to a search engine for inclusion. Generally you just need one link from a website that is already in the search index and your site will be picked up and added.

Once your search engine friendly website is complete, optimised and online it usually only takes a couple of days to get into the search results. In the old days it used to take up to 8 weeks to get into the search index!

Free Search Engine Submissions

Free search engine submission services are still available from many major search engines.

Search Engine Position

When a search engine is used to find information there are often many sites that match the search criteria. These are sorted in order of the most and least relevant sites that match the query and returned as a list to the user. The most relevant listing will be at the number one position. Search engines use complex algorithms to decide which sites should be considered relevant and these algorithms are updated quite frequently.

In general, your search engine position is influenced by factors such as the quality of your site content, the type of listing you have, the number and quality of external links into your site, your industry, your online competition, the keyword phrases targeted and the different search engine ranking algorithms. As you can see there are many aspects to consider.

Having a search engine friendly, optimised website with good quality content usually does the trick but if your online competition is fierce, there could be many sites competing for the same keyword phrases.

Link Campaigns To Improve Position

One of the most effective ways to raise your search engine position (particularly in Google) is to increase the number of external links to your site. Links from industry authority sites are considered the best. To increase the number of links into your site from other sites, look for sites that share the same target audience as yours and request a reciprocal link that will benefit you both. Avoid swapping links with low-quality sites or ‘link farms’ as these are generally not beneficial to your site.

Maintaining Your Search Engine Position

When competition is tough you will often see your online opposition changing their strategy to find ways to maintain their position and this might bump your site further down the search results page. If you absolutely must have a number one position then prepare to review your strategy regularly.

Measuring Success with Website Statistics

Worldwide, LinkedIn is signing up a new member every 2 seconds.

At the time of writing LinkedIn has more than two million members in Australia. Worldwide, LinkedIn is signing up a new member every 2 seconds.
As a professional online networking tool Linked in can help you to manage your identity online, develop business relationships, join groups and share insights or ask questions to solve business problems. Importantly, LinkedIn helps you to own your identity online and take control of the brand that is ‘you’. Make LinkedIn really work for you:
Ensure your profile is 100% complete
Build your network (50 connections is a good start)
Read the update stream
Update your status (become a thought leader and help others learn)
Use Inmail to “soft contact” people in your extended network
Use the mobile app
Give recommendations
Join groups and contribute
Create a company profile

At the time of writing LinkedIn has more than two million members in Australia. Worldwide, LinkedIn is signing up a new member every 2 seconds. That is HUGE!

As a professional online networking tool LinkedIn can help you to manage your identity online, develop business relationships, join groups and share insights or ask questions to solve business problems. Importantly, LinkedIn helps you to own your identity online and take control of the brand that is ‘you’.

Make LinkedIn really work for you:

  • Ensure your profile is 100% complete
  • Build your network (50 connections is a good start)
  • Read the update stream
  • Update your status (become a thought leader and help others learn)
  • Use Inmail to “soft contact” people in your extended network
  • Use the mobile app
  • Give recommendations
  • Join groups and contribute
  • Create a company profile

Do you feel like you need to join LinkedIn yet?