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Get your head around the basics.

To provide in depth information on all the Search Engine Marketing tips and tricks that we have gathered over the years, would take forever to explain; some would say it's a career in itself. The world of search marketing requires constant monitoring of new search engine developments and methodology. This means reading the right blogs and industry info, all of the published reports & attending all the relevant conferences and new technology sessions, to just keep up to date. This SEM guide starts out with the basics, though we are an open book with all of our clients; so don't ever hesitate to contact us via email or on live chat for a detailed explanation on key information.

What is SEM?: Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is essentially the process of making your website visible on major search engines, like Google, Yahoo! and MSN. This means that when a Web-user types a search term (query) relevant to your website into the search bar, your site appears toward the top of the search results page.
Who practices SEM?: The number of website owners performing their own SEM, or employing the services of SEM agencies has grown exponentially in the last few years. 'SEM' and 'SEO' have become buzz words almost as widely used as 'weblog.' People spend vast amounts of money on SEM - with varying success.

Figures suggest that listings below the fourth or fifth position on a search engine's results deliver far less traffic, and that web-users rarely look past the first three pages of results; so for businesses that rely on Internet-generated leads, search engine marketing can be essential.

There are two basic elements to SEM - search engine optimization (SEO), and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. While some webmasters contract to different highly specialized firms for SEO and PPC, many SEM practitioners advocate an integrated approach, so as to leverage knowledge gained from one part of a campaign for another. A PPC campaign produces a lot of data about the keywords and ad copy that get the best conversions, while examining natural search results provides data for PPC strategies, such as negative keyword matching.
What is the difference between SEO and PPC?: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) usually refers to the optimization of a website so that it ranks well on a search engine's 'natural,' or 'organic' search results page for desired keywords. That is, the regular results that are not paid for. This involves keeping abreast of the regular changes that search engines make to their ranking algorithms. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

PPC (Pay Per Click) is paid-for-results. Search engines display PPC ads on their results page - usually clearly separated in some way from the organic listings - as well as on a range of content sites. When a web-user clicks on the ad, the site owner is charged a small (or, for very popular keywords, multiple dollar) fee by the search engine. PPC ads have traditionally been text based, but image ad options are available, as well as pay-per-call.
Content. Content. Content.: While the density of keywords is important, these days there is much more to content than this. The following are factors that some search engines may use in their algorithms to rank pages; remember that the algorithms are constantly updated, and fiercely guarded, so these are a merely a guide:
- Regularity with which new content is added. As a general rule, the more frequently the content is updated, the better. Some sites maintain a weblog, or post press releases and news updates regularly on their site in order to keep creating fresh content.
- Uniqueness of content
- Related terms in the content - terms that the search engine thinks are related to the main content of the page
- Negative rankings for illegal or unsafe content
- Quality of HTML coding, and compliance with W3C standards
Offpage Influence.: With the arrival of Larry Page and Sergey Brin's PageRank system in the late 1990s, the way search engines ranked their pages began to take a whole range of off-page factors into account. Off-page factors are any features, not on the actual webpage, that affect its rank.

Google's original PageRank system regarded the backlinks (incoming links) to a website as "votes" for that website. So, a page with more links to it was regarded as more important.

Off-page factors have evolved to form complex parts of search engines' algorithms, but some of the most important factors include:

- Age of the backlink, and the reputation of the linking site
- The anchor text in the backlink, and its relevancy to the search term
- Rate of acquisition (too fast might indicate unnatural link buying), and rate of removal of backlinks
- Use of the "no-follow" tag to tell a search engine's spider not follow the link
When I place ads via PPC, where do they appear?: - Search networks. This is where ads are displayed along with a search engine's natural results. For all the larger search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) this means that the ads will not only display on their main search listings, but throughout their network of search engines.

- Content networks. Displaying ads across content networks allows for keyword targeted ads to appear on a huge array of content sites, relevant to the keyword. For example, if you sell Belgium chocolates, your ads might display on a chocolate blog, or an online Newspaper containing a story about chocolate. You can also target certain high-traffic sites that you'd like the ads to appear on. Displaying ads on content networks also allows an advertiser to use image and video ads.

- Geo-targeting. This allows you to set the locations you want the ads to be displayed. With some search engines you can do this by country, state, city, region, suburb, or postcode. Some also offer the option of setting exact latitude and longitude points within which the ads will be displayed. This means the search engine tracks the users IP address and only displays the ads to those within the desired areas. This is particularly useful if your business only operates within a set geographical boundary.

- Product and service search engines (also known as vertical search). These search engines let advertisers provide feeds of their product or service databases. The advertisers who pay more are given more prominence in the results returned, but users can often sort the results by price or other characteristics.
How do I choose the best keywords?: This is a difficult question, and one that will take more than this description to answer, but here are some essentials:

- Relevancy.Search engines all insist that relevancy is the most important consideration for keywords. Of course, this is advice search engines are very happy to give, since the more relevant the ads are to the search term entered, then the more likely it is that a user will click on an ad, which means more revenue for the search engine. It should also theoretically be better for the user, since the paid results will be more useful, and also for the advertiser, who should get a better conversion rate from users who are actually searching for their product or service. The search engines also try to enforce strict relevancy criteria. Yahoo! Search Marketing's advertising guidelines state:

Advertisers may bid on a search term only if the Web site has substantial content that is clearly and obviously reflective of the search term, and the line listing (title and description) accurately describes why the Web site is listed for the search term.

- Think outside the square. If you want to drive traffic to a website in a very competitive market like mortgages, then you need to think more creatively than your competition. Think of (and research) the types of phrases and keywords potential customers actually enter. Consider plurals, misspellings, and phrases. Some search engines' advanced match options do this for you. For example, if you bid on 'Dog Collar,' Yahoo! Search Marketing's advanced match system would give you:

Exact: dog collar
Plural: dog collars
Common Misspellings: dog collers
With extra words: leather dog collar
In a phrase: buy a dog collar online
Separated by words: dog and collar
In a different order: collar and dog
Tracking CTR: As any search engine marketer will tell you, one of the best things about PPC ad campaigns is the massive array of return on investment (ROI) data they generate.

- The click-through rate (CTR) is given by dividing the number of impressions an ad receives (the number of times it is displayed) by the number of clicks it receives. This shows you how well your ad text (or image ad) is attracting customers, and allows you to make any adjustments that are necessary.

The conversion rate is given by the number of conversions divided by the number of clicks. A conversion is whatever you want users to do on your site. This allows you to precisely calculate your ROI, and adjust your campaign budget to suit.
What are Display Ads?: Display ads, or Banner ads; are the banner style images you often see on most websites. Here is some information you should know:

- Images with a company logo and/or information which are embedded into web pages that have interesting content (such as a news article).
- The traditional size of a banner ad was 468 x 60 pixels, but now many other shapes and sizes such as the 'half banner' and 'skyscraper' can be utilised to suit specific needs. (See the Internet Advertising Bureau's standard sizes here.)
- CPC ads are charged on the number of clicks an ad receives, whereas banner ads are usually charged on a CPM pricing arrangement. CPM stands for Cost Per Mille. A mille is a thousand, so a website selling banner ad space at $40 CPM means it will cost $40 to buy 1000 impressions of your banner
- A standard banner ad on a popular site would cost approx $25-80 per thousand (CPM), with a 'click through rate' of response to that banner of around 0.4% (source: Webmaster World)
- Banner ads don't usually achieve the same high click through rates as targeted pay per click advertising, as they are not linked to searches and content in the same manner
- As an alternative to placing your banner/image ads on specific high traffic websites, you can also consider placing your ads on a variety of related websites through the Google content matching service for image ads.
- The difference between this model and standard banner advertising is that Google's image ads are precisely targeted to the content of a publisher's web page using the AdWords contextual advertising technology.
- Advertisers are able to target their image ads by selecting keywords related to their product, which is then used to match the image ads to related content on web pages where the ads appear.
- Running a combination of image and text ads expands the online marketing channels for your business, and offers the potential for increased revenue.
- You can calculate on an ad-by-ad basis which text ads and image ads serve your business better, and optimise the campaign accordingly.
- Ideal for attracting attention, targeted image ads offer a powerful branding opportunity, and cheap alternative to banner advertising.
- Image ads are charged on either a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) or PPC basis - and are often one tenth of standard banner ad price.
- PPC ads are generally much more cost effective than banner ads for increasing website traffic and sales
- However, banner advertising can be a successful method for improving product branding and exposure on frequently visited sites
- Remember that most sites hosting banner ads have repeat visitors, and most visitors view more than a single page per visit, so 100,000 impressions might only represent 10,000 to 30,000 unique visitors
- Information about the number of clicks an ad receives is always available, so make sure you understand the results of each ad campaign and only invest in the most successful strategies
What is a conversion?: A conversion can be any action a website owner desires that a user performs on their site. Common examples include making an online purchase, signing up for a newsletter or RSS feed, requesting more information, or simply viewing a particular page on the site, like the 'contact us' page.

Key Conversion Data Terms

Conversion page
The web page where you confirm that a conversion has occurred. This might contain something like 'Thankyou for your purchase.'

Conversion rate
The number of conversions divided by the number of ad clicks. This gives you information about which landing pages are generating the most conversions.

Conversion type
Allows you to specify different types of conversion (e.g. signup, page view) in order to generate specific data for each.

Cost per conversion
The total cost divided by the total number of conversions. Placing a $ value on the conversion allows you to accurately calculate the return on investment (ROI).
How is Conversion Data Generated?: - In a PPC ad campaign the advertiser can monitor how many click-throughs (from which particular ads, to which particular destination URLs) have resulted in a conversion
- This is done simply by adding some HTML code to the conversion page that allows for the data to be reported back to the search engine, or advertising provider
- Useful data can also be collected about what sort of search activity precedes the conversion
- Cookies can be generated to stay in a computer for 30 days so you can monitor when a customer has responded to your PPC ad but not converted until a subsequent return to your site later in the month
What is it?: Online advertising is essentially the practice of promoting a product or service on the internet.

Although beginning from similar business principles to traditional advertising, where the audience's attention to a medium is intermittently diverted to commercial promotions, there are some significant differences when ads go online.

Most significantly, online advertising provides extensive information about consumer preferences (through their browsing patterns), such that ads can be very directly targeted to relevant markets. In particular, conversion data can be used to monitor return on investment (ROI), and the success of particular ads and landing pages.

This is great for advertisers, who have constantly been striving to understand more about what potential customers want, and why.
How does it work?: When you hear the term internet advertising, many immediately assume that the only vehicles for achieving this are those annoying pop-up ads, or marginally more functional banner ads inserted in website content. Or dreaded spam emails.

With many search engines now incorporating pop-up blockers, and even some tools to block banner advertising, internet marketers are fast realizing that for their ads to reach an audience, they must be unobtrusive and relevant.
What are the drawbacks to Advertising Online?: As with any form of advertising, internet advertising can be annoying for a user. Intrusive or obnoxious ads often come in the form of pop-ups and interstitials. Interstitials are ads displayed while a user is downloading content from a site. Other ads can move across a user's screen, or alter the contents of a page. Other more subtle methods involve spreading out content across several pages, or loading new ads while a user is viewing a page.

Worse than this are applications called spyware, or adware, which might alter system settings (like the homepage setting on a browser), launch more pop-ups, or even insert advertisements into non-affiliated websites. These applications often disguise their real intent, by performing useful services, such as providing a search bar. This kind of practice is clearly unethical, and plays on inexperienced web-users.

However, as web-users have become more savvy, and advertisers realize the ineffectiveness of simply annoying potential customers, pay-per-click advertising has grown in popularity.

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