SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

Search Engine Marketing is ensuring that your brand shows up when people turn to Google, Yahoo and other search engines for the solutions, services, or products you provide. As more shoppers flock to the Internet and as search engines continue to evolve,  your business can no longer rely on a website strategy of “post it and leave it” and expect to compete.

Search Engine Marketing encompasses multiple strategies including:

Organic search results are ranked and displayed based on the Search Engine’s (SE’s) ever evolving algorithm which evaluates multiple factors to determine the most relevant sites for each user’s keyword search.   Businesses do not pay the SEs to have their website listing displayed in the Organic search results, unlike the paid listings at the top and far right of the results page.

The strategies and efforts involved in getting your site displayed for as many relevant keyword phrases as possible and as close to the top of the results as possible, is referred to as Organic Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short.

Since organic search listings are not paid advertisements they tend to receive a higher percentage of clicks compared to paid listings.  This additional potential traffic and no fee placement,  makes organic search a potentially very profitable long term source of new business.

A recent development in Search Engine Marketing has been the emergence of Local Search. Google, Yahoo and Bing have all begun prioritizing results they feel best serve a locally intentioned search. So if someone is traveling to Toronto, Canada and searches for “Toronto Greek restaurants,” Google now provides local Greek Restaurants, located in Toronto, that people on the Internet speak highly of.

Taking things one step further, if you have a GPS enabled smart phone, local search results will automatically be displayed without adding in a location modifier (like a city) to your search terms. Very slick!

The displayed results also incorporate Social Media content, integrating unfiltered reviews, along with the business’ location on a local Google map.

Local Search Optimization is evolving as we speak. We believe this is a very exciting opportunity for local small businesses. Bold Media Group is pleased to offer a very competitively priced Local SEO package to get your business listing setup and optimized with a healthy dose of promotion to get you rolling.

PPC is an Internet advertising model used on websites, in which advertisers pay only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market.

While the most prominent PPC network is Google Adwords, there are many other PPC opportunities on the internet spread out over major search engines and niche portals. PPC campaigns need to be constantly analyzed and tweaked to insure you are maximizing your ROI.

The advantage of a PPC campaign over an Organic Search Engine Optimization campaign is that you can begin buying traffic immediately. Organic SEO takes time and lots of effort.  Additionally, since you bid only for specific keywords, your ads can be configured to only show for very targeted audiences, which helps conversions of clicks to sales. The downside is that the cost-per-click can be very expensive for competitive keyword phrases and click volume for first page placement, substantially less than Organic SEO.

Social Media has exploded onto the scene in the last 24 months. Its effects are just beginning to materialize, but one thing is certain, for most businesses it is a phenomenon that must be incorporated into your marketing plans. Social Networks such as Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, TripAdvisor, YouTube, MySpace etc. are providing hundreds of millions of consumers with the platform to recommend, talk about, and yes, brutally criticize your business.

The search engines now factor all these conversations, recommendations, blogs posts and more, in real time, when deciding which listings to display in Search Engine Results.

It is critical that your business understands how quickly things are shifting on these fronts, and put the mechanisms in place to not just participate but thrive.