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SEM Growing More Complex
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc.
May 18, 2005
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Working out a marketing plan for new and evolving websites is a bit more
complicated than it used to be. There are a few new things to be considered
before embarking on a search marketing campaign than in previous years.
Search marketing has become more important and is thus becoming more professional.
With growing acceptance of online communication tools, and a number of alterations
to the faces of search engines themselves, the marketing arena has been
upgraded from a three-ring circus venue to a Super Bowl sized stadium.
Three general factors push the increasing sophistication of the search-marketing
sector. The first is simple; consumers are becoming much more Internet savvy,
as are the businesses that advertise on the net. The second is far more
complicated; the nature of search marketing has been affected by the popularization
of new communication techniques such as instant messaging, email/desktop
search, blogs, press releases, social networks and special interest forums.
The major search engines are both driving and being driven by the development
and proliferation of cool new tools. The third factor is the changing faces
of the search engines themselves. Over the past six months the major search
engines have introduced new features and advertising opportunities, and
new forms of search engines have emerged, giving SEOs and SEMs a lot more
to think about and plan for.
Smarter stuff makes us all smarter
While the domain-specific website remains the central vehicle of an online
advertising campaign, websites have become larger and more sophisticated.
Over the years, search engine users have become comfortable using a variety
of tools to read information, most of which are already bundled into their
browsers. Search engines are able to find and spider information from
multiple file types, permitting search marketers and advertisers entry
into a number of new venues. Increasingly, SEOs and SEMs are being asked
to help clients understand how new applications or technologies can affect
their marketing campaigns, an increasingly difficult task as the environment
is evolving so rapidly.
New Tools
Today, many advertisers are interested in establishing blogs, both as
a means of client communications and as a search-ranking device. Blogs
are very easy to establish and with proper maintenance can be very effective
tools. They can also have a significant impact on search marketing and
site content, provided the blog offers RSS feeds for the major search
engines and personal blog-reading appliances. Blogs allow businesses to
easily update their clients with new information and receive important
consumer feedback from readers. Blog postings have a habit of being proliferated
across other blogs. As each blog posting likely has a link to a feature
or product page as well as a link to the index page of its keeper’s
site, the proliferation of good postings can dramatically increase relevant
link popularity at the major search engines.
Advertisers in the information sector are taking advantage of social networking
applications such as Google or Yahoo Groups, or one of the thousands of
special interest forums around the web. Along with a growing community of
other knowledgeable workers to bounce ideas off and receive information
from, social-network applications help knowledge-based workers promote their
strongest assets, their knowledge. Social networking groups are extremely
interesting for the engineers at the major search engines. While they are
somewhat interested in what is being said, they are even more engrossed
in who is saying what to whom and how that knowledge spreads across a network
of related persons. Smart SEOs and SEMs are helping their clients use these
types of groups to subtly promote their websites by teaching them how to
use forum-signature links and how to responsibly offer good and relevant
advice.
The new applications and tools offered and/or honoured by the search engines
have changed how search engine marketing is practiced. Both blogs and
social networking tools have been around for a few years. After the early
halcyon
days of spam-exploitation, most search marketers have settled down to
use these tools wisely to offer long-term benefits for their clients.
In this
way, search marketing requires a longer-term commitment between client
and practitioner especially in light of the changes in the search engine
environment
brought by new communications technologies.
The changing face of search
The search engine environment has fundamentally changed over the past
six months. There are four major general search engines and dozens of
smaller ones. That part hasn’t changed. For the most part, general
search has not changed that much either though a number of algorithm shifts
have kept SEOs on their toes lately.
What has changed is the stuff behind the veil at every major search engine
though; the more things change the more they seem to be the same. Each search
engine has similar features and applications such as local-search, paid-search
advertising and desktop tools. The smaller search firms also have similar
features and applications, some having more innovative core-functions than
anything the Big4 currently offer. There are also a growing number of sector
or interest specific search tools called vertical search engines.
Part of the search engine environment is fragmenting into a more specific
list of tools from highly specialized search tools to local search engines
designed to find shops or products just down the street from you. While
played on an enormous field, search marketing is often seen as a game of
inches. Knowing how to get sites placed in local and vertical venues is
important for your clients.
Local Search and Mapping
Local search is becoming more important as cell phone users are now accessing
the search engines to plan their general shopping itineraries. By combining
geographically based listings and highly detailed maps, local search tools
have carved a useful niche that is growing more popular with busy consumers.
A local search listing will soon be as important as Yellow Pages listings
currently are.
Luckily, it isn’t that difficult to get your client listed in a local-search
tool. The largest like Ask, Google and Yahoo have deals with the phone companies
and publishers of the Yellow Pages to include all their listings, regardless
of whether the businesses listed even have websites. The first thing a search
marketer should do when considering local search is to use an internet based
local yellow pages or telephone directory to see if their client is listed.
If they are a new business, the search marketer should call the phone company
or phone directory publisher in their client’s region to get them
into the local-business database for future spidering. Search marketers
should also place geographic identifiers such as street address, telephone
numbers, zip or area codes and even GPS coordinates in the footer of each
page of the site.
Vertical Search
This is an area that is much more commercial than general or even local
search. A vertical search engine is one that hones in on a specific topic
such as travel, shopping, books or cars. Populated by the a number of
well known names such as Travelocity, Expedia, ABE Books, the field is
rapidly expanding with new entries such as Become.Com for shoppers, CyberGolfSearch.com
for golfers and EdComp.com for education and training opportunities. The
Big4 are already on board in one way or another with features such as
Google’s Froogle and Yahoo Shopping.
Vertical search engines are betting that as the Internet grows more complicated,
search users will turn to a search tool they know specializes in the
product, service or activity they are directly interested in. LookSmart
has jumped
on the vertical search bandwagon with five unique verticals and another
vertical search tool, Answers.Com has developed a deal with Google to
provide information culled from its various vertical databases. Earlier
this year,
the shopping focused vertical search tool Become.Com was launched by
industry leaders Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun who quickly hired industry
legend Jon
Glick away from Yahoo.
Most high-quality vertical search engines are spider-driven or draw from
spider-driven databases so getting a site into them should be as easy as
paying attention to relevant link-building however SEOs and SEMs are advised
to check into vertical search tools for clients by their specific sector
and to ask their clients if they know of any sector-specific search engines.
Desktop Search
Desktop search and other personalized search applications have emerged
to help specific users find information they have already seen. Desktop
search locates documents and files housed on the hard-drive of the user,
including references to websites that user previously visited. Optimizing
for desktop search is fairly simple in that most of the same basic rules
apply. Once visited, clear titles and single-focused page content should
help clients’ sites re-appear when a specific desktop user types
keywords relevant to the client’s site, page or documents.
The number of methods used to express and recall information across the
Internet are increasing and becoming simpler to use. Webmasters and advertisers
now incorporate audio/video files, blogs, and Flash animations into their
websites and the major search engines are indexing them. Search engine marketers
are finding the environment in which they practice evolving faster than
the techniques used in their practices. There are literally dozens of different
tools to use when building a web presence and each approach will have an
effect on search marketing efforts. Fortunately, much of what is new is
based on the foundation of how spider-driven search engines have always
worked. New technologies provide better ways to communicate ideas, services
and products and savvy search marketers are learning to use them. As long
as spiders act like spiders and search engines continue to spider sites,
finding the way to the future by following the paths of the past continues
to be the best marketing plan.
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