An introduction

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

1. Importance of Search Engines

2. SEM – SEA vs SEO

3. How do Search Engines work?

4. How do people search?

5. SEO: obtain high rankings in SERPs

6. SEO Web Copy

WHAT TO EXPECT?

How do I know you’re not just bullshitting around?

WAIT A MINUTE.

Hi, my name is Tim Vermeire. @vermeiretim digitally.

Born ‘n raised in the Far-West of Belgium.

Studied Social Sciences and E-business @ UGENT. Workshops in Strategy & Entrepreneurship @ London Business School.

Started professional experience within a SEM agency and applied it in later positions to market products and services successfully.

Over the past 5 years I helped companies obtain sustainable growth through intelligent SEM activities.

Guess that makes me more a pull-marketer than a marketer desperately screaming for attention.

1. IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINES• Regardless of website goal, you need visitors.

• Majority of people use SE to get info

• Impossible to realize how they ever did it before... Can you imagine?

• Visitor attracted based on interest - PULL

• Keyword drives traffic

• Customer is by definition “interested”

• Conversion potential very high!

• “8 seconds”-philosophy: on site conversion

• No interruption-marketing

1. IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINESAdvert blindness on search results

SEO

Vs

SEA

Banner blindness – on site1. IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINES

Focus on Google

• Most widely used

• If high ranking in Google, mostly in others as well.

1. IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINES

2. SEM – SEA VS SEO• SEM = define the most relevant keywords for a website to drive high-quality traffic from search

engines.

• 50% of the job.

• SEO firms tend to forget conversion!

• Some SEO firms just do tricky things.

• Stay Clean Black Listing by Google for bad techniques like listing al keywords on your website in the same colour as your background – keyword stuffing.

• Overview SEM, SEO, SEA

2. SEM – SEA VS SEO• Cfr: Advert & Banner Blindness

Search

SEA

SEO

2. SEM – SEA VS SEO• SEM = result-driven

• SEM = branding

• People believe first organic results are most reliable

• Cfr: Banner Blindness – SEA Blindness

• SEM = PR

• Journalist are lasy

• Journalist trust Google Organic SERPs

3. HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK.• This is not static!

• Algorithm update

• Main principles remain

• “Influence” gains importance – growth of social media

• Explicit example: Google’s +1 button

• Who searches and recommends what becomes important

• Search sites – Directories – Comparison sites - Search Engines

• Principles: Scanning > Indexing > Ranking

3. HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK.• Scanning

• Crawlers & Spiders (BOTS, Software)

• From link to link through your website code

• Important to use copy in most optimal sense

• Template for keyword research & web copy

• For more details on the template, contact me.

• Remark: directories – curation by people (!)

• Equally important to get listed

• Cfr: linkbuilding

3. HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK.• Specific search systems

• Metasearch > aggregated

• News search

• Image search

• Google

• But also: Flickr, etc.

• Video search

• YouTube (by Google)

• But also: Vimeo, etc.

• Local search

3. HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK.Relevance is key!

1. Internal Relevance

• # times keyword is indexed

• Place of keywords (title, header, ...)

2. External Relevance

• Authority of page (Pagerank , social influence, ...)

• Incoming links (link txt - authority)

• CTR

4. HOW PEOPLE SEARCH. • First page, first results

• Psychological split ‘organic’ (seo) & ‘paid’ (sea)

• Do not browse beyond page 3

• Max 30 results scanned

• 4 Groups of “Searchers”

4. HOW PEOPLE SEARCH. 1. Scan & Select

• Stays on page 1; scans first 3 results; fast clicker

• young male

2. Two step scanner

• First results in detail; scroll down

• Older generation (avg. 47 y.o.)

3. Deliberate researcher

• Reads titles & descriptions

• Heterogenous group (all ages, all sexes)

4. 1-2-3 searchers

• Very detailed; reads everything

• Low internet-savy people

4. HOW PEOPLE SEARCH. • Search process is not linear and simple.

• Complex and Dynamic

• Refine cycles

• You have to know what people search for!

• Keyword research is key

• Refine cycles = The long tail = keyword combo

• High-interest visitors

5. SEO: OBTAIN HIGH RANKING IN SERPS.1. SEO Technology aspect > Clean Code & Design

• Internal factors

• External factors

• Separate slideshow ;-)

2. SEO Methodology

• Audit & Selection of Keywords

• Set-up of renewed SEO-optimized pages

• Support and maintenance

• Dynamic

• SEO is not a one-shot exercise.

5. SEO: OBTAIN HIGH RANKING IN SERPS.• Keywords and combinations?

• Online Tools that help you

• Keywords on correct place on website

• Follow the structure of the Template

• Keyword density

• Recap of keywords on a page

• Easy indexing > technology & code

• Flash & JavaScript can now be indexed by Google

• Focus is on social comment integration!

• Growing importance of social influence on rankings.

• Link Building – search for partners (!) ; directories ; ...

• SiteMap – support Google and offer a “table of content”

• Content = King. Make a “content-heavy” website. Add new content as often as possible.

6. SEO WEB COPY – KEYWORD RESEARCH1. Check competitive websites for keyword

• How? Separate slideshow.

2. Check your own website and add to list

3. Have a brainstorm session with others

• Check for synonyms, combinations, etc.

4. Use an online keyword tool to check popularity

• Rank keyword popularity in Excel

5. Check # results for that keyword on Google

• Add this # in extra column in your Excel

6. Select the keywords and combo’s

• Easier to score and high-interest visitor (long tail)

6. SEO WEB COPY - COPYWRITINGMeta tags:

• Meta title:

• Meta description:

• Meta keywords:

Body text:

• Include keywords on correct positions, for max impact.

• More details on templates for keyword research and web copy writing, contact me.

7. SEM CONSULTANCY? SEM TRAINING?

Contact @vermeiretim