Search Marketing 101

With the holidays fast approaching, you’re busy stocking the latest inventory and making sure the bells and whistles on your site are working. Remember the first step, help customers find you! Below are some Search Marketing tips.

Organic Chemistry
Natural (unpaid) listings inspire consumer confidence, but organic listings take time to establish. You won’t get your company near the first page overnight. To increase the relevancy of your pages, have unique descriptions for your landing pages and items. You will also want to make sure that your META tags, which search engines can crawl, are optimized with keywords that will make you stand out from the competition. If you have spent time cultivating your organic listings, you’re ahead of the game.

Get the Customers NOW!!!
Your other alternative is pay per click ads. The three main players in this arena are Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Concentrate your ad dollars where you receive the most traffic, but invest some money in all three. To determine how customers are finding your site, have analytic software installed. Google offers free software to get you the statistics you need.

The Art of the Deal
Pay per click advertising is not always about keywords or creative, it’s also about maximizing your advertising dollars. If you are offering discounts or specials, advertise! Decide now which specials you will be offering and have your ads prepared well before the holiday season begins. While it still takes money to make money, wise planning lets you make more with less.

Be User-Friendly
Once you have a game plan to entice customers to the site, test the landing pages to make sure they work for the customer. Move your most popular items and important info above the fold on the landing page. They will be easier to find, and can lead to better conversion rates on your ads. Expand your keyword list. Use tools like the search archives in your site, analytic software or just a simple keyword generator. These tools will help you build a list of keywords to ensure that you have your entire customer base covered.

We Can Help
If you are not sure where to start or you don’t have time to do the research, Solid Cactus has Search Engine Marketing professionals who can help you build content and do the keyword research on your site. We also are a Google Qualified Company and have Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassadors to help build your ad campaigns for the paid listings. To learn more about our services contact us today.