Guys,
I just finished a very good hand book by IAB UK. It’s about Search Marketing.
This guide was created by IAB’s Search Marketing Council with the contribution of:
- Bigmouthmedia
- DoubleClick
- Guava Ltd.
- Harvest Digital
- i-level
- Latitude Group
- Microsoft
- Oban Multi Lingual
- Weboptimiser
- Yahoo
- ZedMedia
For those who want to download the ebook: IAB Search Marketing Handbook
What i plan to do is to give a brief summary together with my comments on a few points.
I hope it’s beneficial to those who are too busy to read through the whole thing.
1. IAB statistics:
- IAB/PWC shows that internet ads spend tops 2.7 billion pounds which equal USD $5.44 billion
- Jul 07, 28m people visited a search engine and 26.2m of these clicked through
onto a site. This is nearly 47% of UK population! - Below is the Percentage share of Revenues for Jan to Jun 2007 in the UK
2. Combining Paid Search & Search Engine Optimization
- Refer to the picture below to understand what Paid Search (PPC) and SEO are:
- PPC:
+) Bring immediate traffic, results.
+) Text ad can be changed easily to reflect seasonality, promotions etc…
+) Advertisers pay on a cost-per click pricing model.
- SEO:
+) More long term basis, may take several months to implement
+) Listing text is more difficult to amend.
+) SEO requires on going maintenance
- Being in both paid for and natural search, dramatically increases the number of clicks to your page (1-2% to 6%) Source: Google
- “Aligning PPC and SEO strategy, rather than managing channels in isolation, is ideal.” Georgie Harmel, ZedMedia
- How to integrate PPC and SEO
+) Testing: to test the ROI of search terms using PPC and then subsequently optimize for those terms with SEO
+) Generic Terms: High volume, high competition for both PPC and SEO, high avg CPC
+) Tactical Activities: PPC is for short term promotions since text ad of Sponsored links can be changed easily. SEO is more for long term
+) Landing page: Deep linking is a must. Choosing landing page should have take into consideration SEO guideline since Google and Yahoo Quality Score consider keyword, ad text, landing page relevancy.
+) Search submit pro
3. Demographic targeting
- Demographic targeting in search is the process of only showing adverts to specific audiences using demographic information such as age, gender, location and socioeconomic class. Current, only Microsoft Ad Center and Google Adwords offer demographic targeting.
- Same concept with traditional marketing: Send the right messages to the right audience
- Tailor your ad copy: to suit different demographic. For example: backpackers tend to look for cheap accommodation without much consideration about security of the hotel etc…
- Case Study: A recent case study in the UK showed that when a travel advertiser used demographic targeting and up-weighed their bids by 30% for searchers living in the London and Kent areas, aged between 25 and 45 years, they experienced a click through rate that was five times higher than other search engines. They also saw a click-to-sale ratio that was 35% higher than other search engines where this type of targeting is not possible.
4. Geo targeting:
- Based on IP address
- Advertiser can target people speak different languages separately
- Country, region, city, customized targeting are possible
- Geo targeting is quite common for Paid Search. However, even for SEO, you should take note of Geo Targeting as well.
okay guys, it’s getting late. I will continue tomorrow, Search Marketing Handbook Part 2