Search Engine Marketing

Almost 9 out of 10 people who use the Internet are going to search engines looking for information about products, services, events and issues. So, if your company or organization isn't highly visible to those searchers, you've lost multiple opportunities to sell or persuade!

What is Search Engine Marketing?
"The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities."

Source: Search Engine Optimization & Marketing Glossary from SEMPO
Edited by Danny Sullivan

Search engine marketing tactics fall into two broad categories:

1. Natural Search, or SEO (search engine optimization):A variety of tactics designed to make your site rank well in the organic, crawler-based listings of various types of search engines on keywords and terms used by your potential customers, members, donors, etc. when they search the Internet.
2. Paid Listings, or Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing:Search engine listings that you pay for, much like a paid ad. In other words, the Web site owner pays the search engine or directory to list a site in the top search results when Internet users search on keywords and phrases related to the content on that site.

Sound simple? It isn't. In today's world of News Search, Vertical search, Blog/RSS Search, and an ever more sophisticated world of Mainstream Search, creating a successful, high ROI search marketing campaign is a complex and strategic project.

How Search Engine Marketing can help you:
It's really pretty simple: Search Engine Marketing will drive more traffic to your site, and more traffic can be translated into more sales, donations, dollars, actions, or memberships. If your site doesn't appear at the top of the search results when Web users search for your organization or product, or on keywords related to your organization or product, you are losing money.

How RedBoots can help you with Search Engine Marketing:
It has been said that Search Engine Marketing is like trying to change a tire on a moving vehicle. The opportunities, the pitfalls, and the rules of the game change almost daily. In fact, if you don't know what you are doing, you can actually hurt your site's natural rankings and/or waste marketing dollars on useless clicks from poorly executed PPC campaigns.

Using the latest intelligence, RedBoots creates and executes Search Engine Marketing strategies that get results and save you money in the long run. Our comprehensive search engine marketing services include:

• Search Engine Optimization - Keyword research and analysis, technology and code review, content development and copy writing, link building, submissions, paid inclusion management, conversion tracking etc.
• Search Engine Advertising/Pay Per Click - Targeting the right keywords, writing and testing copy for high click-through rates and conversions, managing bid prices and positions across engines, conversion tracking, etc.
• Search Engine Public Relations - The strategic use of search engines, especially News Search and Blog/RSS Search, combined with Blog and RSS Feed Marketing and other guerilla tactics to create positive visibility among an organization's various publics in the online space.
• Tracking and Analysis - Analyzing visitor traffic statistics to track and document results and revising strategy based on hard data, not assumptions.
• Traffic Conversion - Hey, the traffic only matters if it converts (to a sale, a membership, a donation, an advocacy action, whatever). We work with you to implement conversion tracking on your site for all your campaigns.

But it doesn't end there. As specialists in integrated marketing, RedBoots will help you determine where Search Engine Marketing should fit into your online strategy and your overall communications strategy as well.

Building a new Web site? The best time to think about Search Engine Marketing is during the design and planning phase! RedBoots can ensure that your site is designed and built to be indexed easily by the search engines and that your site contents will be thoroughly mapped and indexed to the right keywords. Ask us about our SEO Site Build package and start off on the right foot!

Final Tip: Beware of the "Guaranteed top 10 placement in major search engines for $200" sales pitch -- it won't work and you will be looking for a real expert within weeks!

For more information on our search engine marketing services, send us a request information form or phone us at 703-556-6950.

More Resources on Search Engine Marketing