Four experts chime in about what does and doesn’t work when planning a search strategy
PPC vs. SEO
Pippa Nutt
Director, online strategy, Northern Lights Direct Response
Both SEO and pay per click (PPC) are essential to online visibility, and, when used effectively, complement each other. Yet, PPC is often better at fulfilling direct response marketing objectives. For example, paid search will land you on the first page of search results more readily than organic search. SEO is hit-and-miss when it comes to ranking, particularly around competitive keywords.
SEO is also more expensive than you might realize, because of the time involved and the frequent up-front investment required as well as third-party costs, such as link building. PPC can be expensive but you only pay by the click and if properly managed, it can lower costs and streamline ROI. Also, with paid search, you determine which page search visitors see upon arrival, which can help boost conversion rates.
Content curation
Pawan Deshpande
CEO, HiveFire
Marketers look toward content curation to help procure and distribute information to prospects and current customers on a recurring basis. For example, if the client is a “carrier class network” vendor, it might need to invest in SEO for visibility in search results or initiate a PPC campaign while optimizing across tens or hundreds of search terms to attract attention.
Instead, the marketer could create a microsite filled with content on carrier class networks, offering the prospect a single resource for all things about this topic. Over time, this resource becomes prominent in organic search results, and as more content is accumulated, the site increases in ranking for related search terms with no additional effort.
Optimize site search
Shaun Ryan
CEO, SLI Systems
Site search has become the preferred way to find products or information for most website visitors. As a result, care and effort should be taken to ensure a user-friendly, effective site search. Here are a few tips to optimize your site search:
(1) Make your search box easy to find, and position it “above the fold”; (2) Show user ratings and reviews in search results; (3) Use synonyms to offer more results — some may search for coats, rather than “jackets”; (4) Accommodate spelling errors by identifying misspelled search terms in site search reports and configure the site to deliver results for these terms; (5) Watch the keywords that are gaining popularity.
Earned media
Craig Greenfield
VP of search and performance media, Performics
Earned media outlets, if properly mined, provide actionable insights into what resonates most with marketers’ audiences. Simple techniques enable marketers to answer questions like:
Who talks about your brand and what do they say? What key terms permeate the conversation? How do competitors engage your customers and prospects? How do you join the conversation?
Simple data collection methods include using social listening tools to understand customer conversations; managing profile pages on Facebook for feedback; and mining query data to better understand customer intent. Regardless of the collection method, earned media insights can improve relevancy of search programs.