SEM Revealed

This is relevant to just about all web marketing. So we have to look at updating our modus operandi. We all know it’s vital that all commercial organisations are on the web. But that’s not the answer to the problem. Your clients need to know where you are.

Picture a new retail premises opening up shop: It’s taken time, money and expertise to get to this stage. It’s opening time, and they’re looking for clients… Then they look outside and find they’re in a rural outpost! Nobody will know how to reach them. What kind of sales do you think they’ll manage? The vast majority of business websites have just this problem.

Marketing has undergone a huge change because of the internet. A decade or so ago, it was fashionable to jump on the website bandwagon. Complex graphical websites costing thousands (or tens of thousands) were regularly launched. Obviously, this new business was very welcome to web design companies. Then it became apparent that no-one was visiting these sites. There was a belief that if you built it, they would come. Sadly, this wasn’t true…

Modern internet marketing requires a fundamental shift in thinking from traditional marketing. People used to established marketing techniques would say your web site is simply an advertisement of your company and its products. As a result, they’ll try to get you to promote the site on radio, TV or in the press. Essentially they’re working in the same way as they’ve always done. They start with a flashy sales site, and then try lots of ‘off-line’ avenues to get people to look at it. Completely missing the point of the web environment!

This process only utilises the web as viewing gallery, which is quite wrong. It allows us to search and research – to discuss ideas and interact with others. It’s completely interactive, bringing massive choice to billions of people. We can find the sites we’re looking for because Google, Bing and Yahoo etc. have formulated huge site directories to simplify the task. Can you imagine trying to find something in Yellow Pages if there wasn’t an order and an index? We’d be forever frustrated and disappointed.

Search Engines have sorted all this. But in doing so, they’ve radically changed the face of marketing forever. Because now, if you want to be found in the vast sea that is the internet, you have to be indexed in the Search Engines. Even that isn’t enough though. Statistics reveal that almost no-one looks ‘below the fold’ on the 1st page.

So to give all companies a chance to be on the first pages, the Search Engines came up with a new form of paid advertising. You only pay when someone actually chooses your advert – hence the name ‘Pay-Per-Click’. This caused quite a storm when it happened. Basically, the only time you now paid was when someone who was already interested asked to look at your site. This is an incredibly targeted way of advertising, and done properly, can yield some exceptional results.

Unfortunately, PPC advertising has now become literally swamped with adverts in most fields. New online marketers have forced up the price per click, largely through over-the-top bidding. So it’s often the case now that many are priced out of the market. In particular, where a sale requires a large number of clicks. Consequently we’re seeing a renewed interest in SEO. This means websites are optimised in ways that naturally push them up the search pages.

To illustrate the challenge: Visit Google now and search for some of your company’s keywords. Do you feature in the first three lists? Most likely not. In other words, you’re no-where to be found. If the answer was yes, are those terms actually being used by customers?

You could be relatively happy with PPC. But are you professionally managing your campaign? What kind of returns are you getting? Do you measure the quality of each campaign and draw up accurate statistics? Without testing and measuring, you can’t be sure what works best. There will always be an element of guesswork (and consequently less than perfect results) without accurate stats.

Sales statistics are now clearly showing that both UK and worldwide commerce is undergoing a paradigm shift towards online sales and marketing. Companies must acknowledge this, to survive and flourish in today’s economy.

(C) Jason Kendall. Hop over to EvolveSEM.co.uk for great business tips on SEM Experts.