(#96) How to Develop a Search Marketing Strategy Written on October 7, 2008, by the coolest guy on the planet.
Strategy is defined as a long term plan of action to achieve a desired goal or outcome.
With search marketing your desired outcome is to be ranked in the popular search engines at a position where searchers will find you. In reality this usually means the front page, and the bulk of searches are usually given to just the top 3 results.
So regardless of what you do in your Search Marketing efforts you always need to make sure you have a strategy or game plan that will finish with you on top.
This may seem like common sense, yet a beginner online will read all kinds of outdated SEO mumbo jumbo and think that because some expert said it, it must be right…
This is a fools errand. SEO, Search Marketing and any type of Marketing- for that matter, is based on the hard science of numbers. The numbers related to your results.
To develop your own search marketing strategy I recommend running tests or experiments of your SEO efforts for no more than 30 days at a time.
Anything that takes longer than 30 days to measure is hardly worth the effort. To ensure that your SEO has maximum effectiveness I recommend always running a control campaign.
Your goal will be to make sure your new experiment, including any new variables you introduced, outperforms the existing search marketing strategy you are using.
So what does a typical Search Marketing Strategy look like?
Here are a few points to keep in mind:
- Research keywords that interested individuals will use to find you. There are several great keyword research tools including Googles keyword tool, Wordtracker, and Keyword Discovery. You can use these keyword databases to compile a spreadsheet of popular terms with other variables such as monthly search volume.
- Always track where your visitors are coming to you from using an analytics software or script. I personally like Piwik analytics yet I see most people using Google analytics. The main argument I see against Google analytics is that your information becomes part of their information which raises privacy concerns for some webmasters. Most analytics packages will tell you which search engines, and for which keywords, your visitors are using to arrive at your site. Knowing where your traffic is coming from is absolutely essential to making progress with your SEO efforts.
- Although onpage optimization is important, a long-term, successful, search marketing strategy is focused on building links to your site. Each of these links will count as a vote for you as a “cool site” that deserves a good ranking. Now, there are many approaches to getting links. Above all these approaches the #1 factor to keep in mind is this- “The easiest way for you to get others to link to you and (in essence) contribute to your search marketing strategy, is to publish truly unique, killer content! Long term this is the best way to run your business Bar None!
- All search engine marketing strategies should be centered around some type of link building. Your daily plan should include ways you will attract attention to your site. This could be done in a variety of ways such as press releases, creating a network with other sites related to yours, submitting your link to directories, developing relationships with others who share similar interests on social networks, and giving away valuable tools, reports or videos.
Now that you’ve seen some ways you can immediately improve your results, what challenges have you faced in getting the results you want by using search marketing?
Just leave a comment below, I promise to answer…
-Jae
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