Canadians perform 33 million search engine queries every day, while Americans perform 405 million searches. These queries range in purpose from general interest to brand research and product comparisons to price shopping and more. According to Harris Interactive, about 80% of internet traffic begins at a search engine. Furthermore, DoubleClick reports 41% of web users use search for simple navigation, typing a query to find a brand rather than typing a URL directly into their browser.
What does this mean to Canadian businesses? It means businesses have an incredible opportunity to connect with North American consumers and business prospects who seek products & services via various search engines.
Pay-per-click, the mechanism behind search engines, can be a powerful, instant source of qualified traffic for your website provided you do your homework and invest a bit of time in managing your campaign. In fact, many website owners who've mastered keyword targeting and know the "insider" bidding strategies say that more than 90 percent of their traffic comes from search engines and pay per click!
If you want to be successful with the PPC search engines, you need to bid on keywords that attract clicks from "qualified" buyers while keeping your bids and the amount you pay search engines as low as possible.
Here are five tips that will help you accomplish that:
1. Figure out your budget. Don't bid or spend more than you can afford! This is a very common error among many businesses. Before you pay for advertising of any sort, calculate the value of a single visitor to your site. Once you know what one visitor is worth, you'll know the maximum amount you can afford to pay per click. Numerous search engines such as Yahoo! have the tools to show you the potential traffic to your site based on what you are willing to spend as well as the number of impressions and pay per click amount.
2. Bid on low-cost variations and common misspellings of specific keywords. Very frequently, you'll see businesses bidding as much as $8.00 per click for popular keywords while no one is bidding on common misspellings and similar keywords that cost just pennies per click.
3. Bid on targeted phrases with less traffic. Rather than bid on a handful of "general" keywords, which tend to be more expensive because they get the highest number of searches, bid on dozens or even hundred of highly "targeted" keywords, which tend to be cheap. For example, instead of bidding on "pet supplies," you might bid on "red dog leash," "oversize dog kennel," and "cat toys with bells." You're sure to see better sales conversions on the more targeted keywords because they attract more qualified buyers. And since no one is bidding on these keywords, your advertising costs associated with this traffic are extremely low.
Another benefit of this strategy is that you can direct these qualified visitors to a page that gives them exactly what they're looking for. In the above example, your listing for the keyword, "oversize dog kennel" could link directly to your dog kennel catalog page, rather than to just the home page of your pet supply store.
4. Create different & separate ads for each product or service you sell. This is an extremely effective strategy, but very few businesses use it: Write ads specific to each keyword and phrase you bid on. For example, instead of writing an ad for "pet food," write one for "nutritious natural dog food," another for "organic cat food," and so on.
These customized ads will attract more attention (and clicks!) from qualified buyers. And, of course, you'll be able to convert more of these visitors to buyers if you direct them to a page on your site with the exact product or service they're searching for. Companies like Yahoo! will allow you to manage all these campaigns via a single interface.
5. Know what your competition is doing. It is always good to observe your nearest competitor and see what key words they purchase, which URLs they use and what tactics they utilize to drive traffic to their site. This will allow your business to refine your strategy and identify points of differentiation versus your competition.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Consider these benefits of using search engine marketing when looking for new ways to promote your products and services online:
• Search is the right medium to find clients when they are seeking for products & services
• In comparison to other marketing methodologies such as banner ads, telemarketing and direct mail, search delivers the most cost effective way to acquire customers
• Search engines match the right customers with the right products
Author Resource:-
At Searchlinqs, Maor is fully responsible for driving the company’s revenues and ensuring Searchlinqs’ marketing and branding initiatives outperform.
Coming from Yahoo! Canada, Maor was the company’s National Marketing Manager, Yahoo! Search. Maor simply is a leader who makes things happen. Maor grew Yahoo! Canada’s search group from 4,200 to 11,000 clients in 3 years, increasing its revenues three fold. Before Yahoo! Canada, Maor spent six years at Bell Canada, most recently as an associate director of customer strategy for small and medium businesses. There he won the company’s President’s award for three consecutive years. Maor began his career at Sprint Canada, where he cut his teeth, after having graduated university. Maor also frequently is selected to speak at industry gatherings where he shares his wisdom, wit and vibrancy.
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