search engine strategy introduction

SEARCH ENGINE STRATEGY INTRODUCTION Tuesday, 25th May 2010

Before we start

1.  What site is the second largest search engine

behind Google?

YouTube

2. How many searches are performed daily around

the world? 4,000,000,000 (29,000,000 per minute)

3. What is the most popular search term in 2009?

Michael Jackson (Twitter was #2)

4.  When did Google float?

19th August, 2004

5. What was the starting price?

US$85

6. What is the current stock price?

US$472.67 (Friday, 21st May 2010)

What is this session about?

Search: A definition 10 mins

Search: Five things to remember 20 mins

Search: Closing thought 10 mins

Discussion 5 mins

Why I love search?

Data Insights +

SEARCH: A DEFINITION

What does a search engine do?

From a user’s perspective: • Ask a question • Receive an answer

From a search engine perspective: • Get asked a question • Find all the answers • Give you the best ones…RANKED • Measure the human interaction with

it’s logic

If you (or your client) are not the answer, someone else is

What is search?

Search Paid (PPC*)

Natural/Organic = +

*PPC = pay per click

SEM SEO = + Search Engine Marketing Search Engine Optimisation

OR

Visited Google & searched for digital cameras

Paid placements outlined in green: top & right

Natural placements outlined in green: centre

Visited Google in December 2009 & look at the changes

May 2010

March 2010

WHAT IS SEM? SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (PAID)

What are the different types of SEM?

Paid Per Click - PPC (Paid for performance - P4P)

•  Benefits •  High level of control & security •  Low level of click fraud •  Highly accountable •  Great ROI

•  Disadvantages •  Poor venue for some industries •  Not suitable for branding campaigns •  Increasingly competitive with inflating CPC’s

Contextual placements

•  Benefits •  Few…

•  Disadvantages •  Lack of control •  Expensive •  Most exposed to click-fraud

PPC Contextual

WHAT IS SEO? SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (NATURAL)

Search Engine Optimisation

“On page” optimisation

•  Site technology & accessibility •  Site content

“Off page” optimisation

•  Link popularity •  Link reputation

Best Practice SEO: Design

•  Several on page elements are taken into account by Spiders (not limited to):

•  Page Titles •  Meta Description & Keywords •  Page Copy (Body Content) •  Image Alt Text •  Internal Link Anchor Text •  File names •  Search Friendly Navigation •  Site Map •  Heading Tags

•  A clearly distinguishable site architecture & navigation structure can help with inclusion & improving rankings.

What is happening in search?

•  In December 2009, there were >131 billion searches conducted by people age 15 or older from home & work ─ 46% increase from December 2008.

•  USA is the largest search market with 22.7 billion searches (17%). ─ China with 13.3 billion searches ─ Japan with 9.2 billion ─ U.K. with 6.2 billion.

•  Russia grew 92% to 3.3 billion.

Source: comScore, 22 January 2010: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/1/Global_Search_Market_Grows_46_Percent_in_2009

All segments search on generic terms

It doesn’t matter what the age, gender of socioeconomic profile of consumers, they all search on generic terms & keywords (eg camera, mobile, insurance)

jargon time-out

SEARCH: FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBER

#1: SEARCH IS MORE THAN WORDS

QUICK POLL:

How many people think about more than a website (destination) for a campaign?

Online advertising Emails Search

QUICK POLL:

Thinking about search, how many people only think about the key words?

Do you ever think about: - articles? - images? - video? - maps (retailers)? - blogs?

Content is king!

You need to be thinking about all of these things & how they can be included for your clients.

The more you think like a consumer, the more the client will trust you & the more they will invest with you.

All of these areas are extra opportunities for you to add value.

What does that mean for you?

•  When you get a brief, think about all the extra elements that will be created as part of the job: ─ Images ─ Videos ─ Articles

•  Think about how you could use them & include them as part of a campaign ─ Does the client have a flickr account, an image gallery on their site,

videos, YouTube channel?

#2 SEARCH MUST BE CONSTANT

How most businesses approach search?

Campaign activity

Most clients view search as being very on/off, but consumers don’t just search because our clients have a campaign in market. It is a key driver, but not when

they are out of market

How businesses should approach it?

Base line activity (consistency & presence in market 365 days)

Campaign activity

Search must be on 365 days a year. With insurance, consumers search on average for two weeks a year, but not all consumers are searching at the same time. This means insurance companies

need to be there 365 days a year.

How do most clients approach search?

Conscious Unconscious

What does that mean for Baileys?

Conscious Unconscious

Recipe

After dinner

Desert

Relaxing

TV shows

TV programming

DVD release

In-home experience

Celebrity chefs Interior design

What can you do for your clients?

Help them create a keyword bible

What is a keyword bible?

Brand terms (Canon, IXUS, PIXMA, EOS, sub-brands)

Generic terms (Camera, digital still camera, DSLR, video, etc)

Cam

pai

gn 1

P

hoto

5

Cam

pai

gn 2

IXU

S

Tell

your

sto

ry

Cam

pai

gn 5

Cam

pai

gn 3

M

DS

Cam

pai

gn 4

Bas

elin

e ac

tivity

C

amp

aign

A keyword bible should be developed for all clients. It should cover a range of their specific brand & sub-brand terms, as well as generic terms.

The campaign activity will come in & out dependent on the offers & T&Cs attached.

jargon time-out

#3: THINK ABOUT THE DETAIL WHEN YOU BUILD

Content tab

Keyword in H1

Keyword body spread

Hyperlinked text

Keyword meta tags

Keyword in title

Keyword in directory

What can you do for your clients?

•  Work with your digital team to let them know what is important ─ Keywords & terms to be associated with the campaign ‘What does

the client want to be known for?’

•  Work with your creative team to prepare copy for the site ─  Headings, description text, keywords

Start asking for this & working together

#4: SEARCH IS INVOLVED, BUT QUICK TO SET UP

What do you need to set up a search campaign?

1. Refine customer goals

2. Select methods (P4P, SEO)

3. Keyword Research

4. Tracking set-up

5. Rules based bid-management

6. Creative rotation &

optimisation

7. Landing page strategy

8. Organic site review &

recommendations

Travel News Provider

Travel News

Travel

Rewards programs

Transport

Accommodation

Airlines

Competitors

General KWs

Destinations

Airport Codes

Airport Names

Hostels

Airline names

Classes, tickets

Car Rental Cos

General terms

General terms

Reward names

General terms

Bus / Train Cos

Hotels

Ad Groups (copy)

syd

lhr

gtw

jfk

etc

Cheap flight

Discount flights

Train to

Car hire

Travel guide

What does a campaign look like? Keywords

(brand, campaign) Campaigns (brand, campaign)

Advertiser (campaign)

Creative (test 1, test 2)

keywords bid price ad copy landing page

sourcing

categorising

matching

testing

purging

position

CPA

ROI

volume

testing

headline

keyword insertion

brand integration

offer

call to action

product specific

general

education

navigation

relevance

tact

ics

conversion tracking

combine, test & learn

optimal rule implementation

What is involved in developing a SEM campaign?

#5: GOOGLE IS MORE THAN JUST A SEARCH ENGINE

Google teleporting is also called ‘search in search’ & this is dictated by the site map & the structure of the site.

Google bomb = practices intended to influence the ranking of particular pages in results returned by the Google search engine.

Google flights allows users to search for flights within a specific time frame & check the travel sites for prices – everything is updated automatically.

Google US ‘digital camera’ search results

Google US ‘digital camera’ search results > Canon brand results

Google US ‘digital camera’ search results > Canon brand results > Shopping

Google US ‘digital camera’ search results > Canon brand results > Shopping > Over $1,000

Google US ‘digital camera’ search results > Canon brand results > Shopping > Over $1,000 > Add to Shopping List

jargon time-out

What you need to remember?

1.  Search is more than words ─  Content, images, video, words

2.  Search must be constant ─  Search isn’t just a campaign, it must be on 100%

3.  Think about the detail when you build ─  Every detail helps push results

4.  Constantly, review, refine & learn ─  Search can be optimised real-time, campaigns can be tested &

learnings taken out immediately

5.  Google is more than a search engine ─  Constantly explore & learn about what else Google are doing

CLOSING REQUEST

Homework – when you are back at work?

•  Pick one of your clients: ─ Think about 5 keywords that might be important to them. ─ Go to Google, Bing & Yahoo! & do a search on all five words. ─ Note where your client appears & any observations about

competitors or the client’s search engine activity (paid vs natural) (brand vs keyword)

•  Click on the ads & look at the pages each keyword takes you to, is it relevant for what you have typed in?

THOUGHTS QUESTIONS DISCUSSION

THANK YOU! http://www.slideshare.net/domhind http://dominiquehind.wordpress.com

SUPPORTING INFORMATION Additional information that might help

Register your trademark

Check, then submit your site

What to focus on for a client?

•  Search needs to focus on all aspects of a client: their products, offerings & brand.

SEO SEM

Products Accessories

Offers Retailers

Google’s Golden Triangle

Note: Google Eyetracking study prior to recent updates & the introduction of Google Universal

Prior to Google introducing Universal search, eye tracking studies suggested that the users eyes always went up to the top left. Meaning that it was extremely

important to try to get the top position.

Google’s Universal Eye Tracker

Note: Google Eyetracking study showing that most people focus on the image before looking at text.

After Google Universal was introduced, the eye tracking studies suggested that the users eyes went to the images first & then the copy next to those images &

above then below.

Do you buy your brand name?

•  Benefits: ─ Integrated Marketing messages

- Tag lines - Price or offer changes

─ Control over top placement ─ Search Volume grows with brand awareness

•  Disadvantages: ─ Cost when you have “built” that term eg Nike. ─ Engine doing a good job then you should be the most relevant

right? ─ Competitor terms Key times to buy:

Strong offline brand campaigns. New product launch or offering.

While SEO is poor

Tracking Paid Search What to look for from the Media Company?

•  From Search Tool: ─ Actual term clicked ─ Click count audit (click fraud filter) ─ Site side conversion event (count, dollar value, id) ─ Search portal (ninemsn or Yahoo?)

•  What does this tell you? ─ The conversion rate of the term, creative & landing page ─ The ROI on the term, group of terms, Search Engine or campaign ─ Audit trail to check search engine costs

•  What can you do? ─ Optimise bids, creative & buy type ─ Compare Search Engines

Tracking Paid Search What is the end result of this tracking?

•  Useful & meaningful reports •  Campaign strategies can be informed by the data &

optimisation strategies implemented •  Bid management can be automated for so that the ROI of

individual terms can be maximised

Tracking Search What to look for with organic listings?

•  No data from Search Engines (in most cases) •  All tracking is site side (log files) or SEO tags •  Manual log file tracking ok for very low traffic sites •  80%+ of the time a tracking tool will capture: ─ Search portal ─ Search term that led to the visit.

“On page” optimisation - Site accessibility

•  Make the site accessible to search engine crawlers ─ HTML is better than Flash

•  Multiple files rather than one large file

•  The absolute minimum: ─ Robots.txt file ─ Correct HTML coding ─ Meta tags with relevant information ─ “use text” visible information should be in text (html) not embedded in

graphics such as .jpg or flash ─ Site navigation that the crawler can follow i.e. site map

•  For dynamic (database driven or Flash sites): ─ Ensure the URL structure is crawlable by the engine ─ Have a browse function as well as a search function ─ Consider static pages for key content (terms)

“On page” optimisation - Site content

•  Start with researching which terms that you want to get found for.

•  Build genuinely useful content relevant to someone searching for that topic.

•  Make that content accessible & readable. •  Meta tags ─ i.e. keyword = car insurance are important but the search engines

check for “visible” text that is relevant, not just the html source code. •  Consider offering additional content other than that which is

strictly required to sell your product i.e. mortgage calculator, hotel information & facilities, whitepaper’s on industry etc.

•  The more useful your content & the more that consumers appreciate it, then the more that the search engines will want your site to rank well for relevant terms.

“Off page” optimisation

•  In order to provide more relevant results, the search engines look further than the content of a particular page/site.

•  Google led the trend, they measured “link popularity” ─ If lots of other sites have links to a site then the site must have

some value to consumers •  The more recent extension of this is “link reputation” ─ If sites link with a tag that includes terms, then the page is more

likely to be relevant for those terms: •  For example, “click here if you want information on car insurance”

•  Beware artificially boosting link popularity is now being monitored by the engines & will be penalised. ─ Use a genuine strategy of contacting relevant sites and request

appropriate reciprocal links.

What you need to remember?

1.  Constant ─  Search isn’t just a campaign, it must be on 100%

2.  Nurture ─  Search must be nurtured, whether it is paid or organic

3.  Integration ─  Search must be integrated into campaigns. ─  Only 2% of people remember URLs shown in TVCs or other activity.

4.  Optimisation ─  Search can be optimised real-time, campaigns can be tested &

learnings taken out immediately 5.  Measurement ─  What does success look like? ─  What were the take outs from the campaign (ATL elements)?