Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

The Search Tango

From MediaPost's Search Insider

For some, search engine marketing (SEM) is a science. People who write about SEM frequently refer to the "Google Dance." At the best SEM companies, however, this dance is really much more like the exotic, Argentinean Tango.

It's easy to learn the basic steps. You can even search Google Images to view the footwork. With a bit of practice, you quickly become mildly competent. The real challenge is to get so good, everyone else on the floor turns to watch.

The first of the search tango partners is the search engine. This is the one that leads. Follow it closely. Did the tempo pick up as it changed algorithms? Or is it in a slow, quiet waltz, buying you time to brush up on your footwork?

Your Web site is the other half of the partnership. And it needs to learn how to dance.

Let's look at how this fits in with MSN's forthcoming search engine, of which MSN offers previews here.

The tests of MSN's search technology preview are coming in, with one pundit after another reporting the same thing: it's a step in the right direction, but MSN's not there yet. Yet why isn't MSN hitting one out of the park?

Tango lessons could help here.

MSN is in a frenetic dance pace right now, gaining partners left and right, filling up its dance card. Currently, its new search engine has indexed roughly one billion Web pages, a number MSN says will grow quickly. While much is made of algorithm changes in Google and Yahoo! that shift a site's ranking up or down a few places, observers of MSN's search technology get to play with something far more exciting - a search engine developing from scratch.

Check MSN's search preview and run a search for your site. If your site is there, see what pages are indexed. See what keywords bring them up. It could teach you a few things that could be applied to the established search engines.

What if your site isn't yet indexed at all among MSN's billion pages? It may just be a matter of time; the dance partner hasn't gotten to you just yet. It could also be a sign that your site is particularly hard to find, or that the site's architecture isn't welcoming to search engine spiders, which would cause some pages to get overlooked.

What if your site is listed, but it doesn't appear as high in MSN's rankings as it does in, say, Google and Yahoo!?

This might signal a bigger problem coming, and it's worth following now. For instance, in running a search on "Cadillac spare parts" (minus the quotes), MSN's search preview returned 15 results. Google retrieved over 47,000. If your site's one of those 15 on MSN, what's going to happen when there's another 10,000 or 100,000 (depending on just how good MSN's search engine gets)? More to the point, how can your site stay on top of the other 100,000?

Take MSN as your dance partner and follow its lead.

For some sites, it may be a good time to sign up for dancing lessons. Leading search engine optimization (SEO) companies can start showing results within several weeks, but complicated sites can take months to get optimized, and it's an ongoing process. By getting started now, when MSN's new search technology debuts later this year, your site can jockey for position with the best of them.

Otherwise, if the SEO budget is just not there or your site is too small to warrant such an investment, planning ahead is still important. Learning the intricacies of search optimization doesn't happen overnight. Sure, you can search in Google to find the dance steps, but that doesn't mean you can dance.

Microsoft's Eytan Seidman writes on the company's "Discussions in MSN Search" newsgroup, "We are learning what it means to run a search service end to end and to return results in a few hundred milliseconds."

The leader's in training too. During these warm-ups, forgive it for stepping on your toes. But you'd do well to practice your moves, with comprehensive dance lessons before the competition begins in earnest.

Why Natural Search Matters

From MediaPost's Search Insider

In the beginning, there was chaos. It was vast and empty, with darkness over the surface of the Web.

And Vint Cerf (or perhaps Al Gore) said, "Let there be light," and there was light from the darkness, and the public logged on with 1200 baud modems to the Internet.

And Tim Berners-Lee said, "Let there be order to the Internet so that there may be websites," and there was evening and there was morning and there was the World Wide Web.

And Netscape said, "Let there be a way to view these websites so easily that your three-year-old niece could do it," and there was a Web browser.

And Yahoo! said, "Let the Websites be arranged in an orderly fashion so that you can search them," and there was a search engine, and there was natural search, and it was very good.

Even before Yahoo! and the birth of the Web, there was Archie, which is considered the first search engine (credit goes to Aaron Wall's "History of Search Engines & Web History" at search-marketing info., found, of course, via a search engine).

Natural search is what Internet users have been doing for over a decade. Various reports have come out showing over 95 percent of Internet users regularly use search engines. What the minority is doing online is mind-boggling. Just try going online one day and not using a search engine, and you'll see how hard it is to avoid.

Without search engines, one could even argue that the rest of the Web is pointless. Yahoo! first tried organizing sites in a directory. While that still exists, it's practically become a novelty instead of a utility. The way to find anything on the Web is via search. To underscore this, entries such as "google" and "yahoo" are among the most searched phrases in search engines, according to Wordtracker.com. It's funny because it's true.

A select few among search industry executives and media cynics who quote them have recently cited paid search as the one and only way to market a business via search engines. It's like saying that the only way to attract attention in a newspaper is via advertising, as opposed to public relations.

Readers will blissfully keep reading The New York Times even if the advertising were to disappear entirely. Likewise, while paid ads on search engines may have been an inevitable development, and while they tend to serve a useful role in connecting consumers to the businesses and information people seek, ads are by no means a necessity to the end user. If we're willing to be perfectly honest, paid search meets search engines' needs first and consumers' needs as a secondary priority.

So now, we come to search engine optimization. It's a practice that ensures businesses' Websites, which are either their primary or one of their most important marketing vehicles, can be found by the people looking for those sites. There are no promises, no guarantees, but respectable search optimization companies can be very effective, showing their clients a strong return on investment in the process. Recalling the newspaper example, natural search is akin to public relations for the Web; the best among optimization companies know what editors are looking for and deliver it in a manner they are comfortable with.

The question should really be, "How does a business function without search engine optimization?" Consider spending a small fortune on a direct mail campaign. Hire a copywriter, designer, and printer. Establish buy-in from top management. Then print out a postcard and tape it to a nearby telephone poll or lamppost. Sure, some people will see it, but it's essentially useless without the final step of duplicating the postcard and getting it out to your customer base. Online with search, it's much more enticing, as customers are actually looking for your business. They're coming to you, a concept one company calls Reverse Direct Marketing™.

Seth Godin, a nearly universally admired author and marketing pundit, posted an entry on his blog calling search engine optimization a "black art," and further stipulating that the way to be successful online is via paid search and good site design. To Mr. Godin's first point, it's hardly a black art. Clients of reputable companies engaging in optimization know exactly what's going on. The clients' tech teams need to know the specifics so they can implement the recommendations. For those passionate about the business, it's a thrilling blend of many a science and discipline, covering linguistics, psychology, marketing, technology, and others. Any art is hardly "black."

As for paid search and site design, those are of growing importance, but why rule out the way customers are accustomed to finding your business? There's a reason the term "natural search" has caught on. The primary way for businesses to connect with consumers online is the one that was there in the beginning, and it will be there in the end.

Naturally.

Design Your Search Marketing Fate

From MediaPost's Search Insider

What's the most overlooked secret to running an effective search engine marketing campaign?

Web design.

The more effective your website is in converting visitors to buyers (or leads, or members, or whatever metric you judge success by), the better your search campaign will be.

Some marketers are extremely adept at building an effective web presence and then using a search program to take that to the next level. Such marketers carefully craft landing pages to match keywords for paid search campaigns, and they ensure their sites are easily navigable when committing to natural search optimization.

Then there are the others. They'll link to their homepages in a keyword buy, even if there are different pages on their site that reflect the ad much better. Or the landing page will be so cluttered that once users get there, they will become so confused that they'll either gun for the "back" button or close the browser out of frustration.

Remember these visitors are potential customers who have just come through your door. Giving them an unwelcoming web experience is like a retail store hiring someone to push incoming shoppers out on the sidewalk.

Here are some common problems with landing pages, along with examples of what works and what doesn't. These sites were all found by clicking on paid search ads through a number of different search engines.

Landing Page Offense #1-Directionless: These sites are characterized by having too many places to go. Then bring to mind a Dr. Seuss rhyme from Oh, the Places You'll Go! "And IF you go in, should you turn left or right. ... Or right and three-quarters? Or maybe, not quite?"

What Doesn't Work: Searching for "school supplies" in Google brings up an ad from a store promoting teacher supplies easily enough. The site offers supplies at the top of the list, but there's a visual overload of 27 links to choose from, along with tabs on the top and side.

Role model: Home Depot hit one out of the park in response to an MSN search for "riding mowers." The page that comes up has a very clear message, "Create the ride of your dreams with John Deere," with a crisp photo of various mowers--a perfect match.

Landing Page Offense #2-Visual Overdose: A picture's worth a thousand words, but it helps to have a few words on a site. Some sites are so artsy that you have no clue where to go.

What Doesn't Work: One of the top landing pages (via a Google search for "shoes") at a fashionable shoe brand's site is so artsy, my eyes blurred looking over it. The two calls to action - "Shop" and "Sign up" - are nestled in the side, and I couldn't even click on them directly; they bring up additional menus.

Role Model: Searching for cheese via Teoma, I found a tempting ad for the Ideal Cheese Shop (idealcheese.com). The copy drives it home. Look at the top product, "San Jaoquin Gold-Fiscalini Cheddar." It's such a romanticized name (even if it should be spelled "Joaquin") that I'm already thinking of what Chardonnay to have with it.

Landing Page Offense #3-Breaking Promises: The keywords people search with indicate their wants. The ad and related landing page are designed to satisfy the searcher. The site must fulfill what the ad promises, or else the visitor departs disappointed.

What Doesn't Work: Searching for "chairs" in Google, I was intrigued by a "fantastic value" on "name brand furniture" in the paid listing. Then I went to the site and was confused. Part of the page had mentions of chairs, and other parts didn't. The ad merely linked to the homepage, instead of a page that could have specifically met the search criterion.

In another example, searching for "servers" in Espotting offers a major computer retailer's ad, but clicking on it provided no reference to servers anywhere.

Role Model: Hunting for an MP3 player via Ask.com brings up a Radio Shack ad that points to a site with most of what I want to know. There are pictures of seven different MP3 players with a brief description and prices, so I can choose based on brand, style, or cost.

Bottom line: By and large, the main goal of search engine marketing isn't just to get eyeballs, which can be easily purchased by the millions if the budget's big enough, but to convert visitors into buyers or subscribers. The search campaign gets you in position, and then your website follows through. Or, to quote Eminem: "This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo, you better."