This document provides an overview of search engine marketing (SEM) strategies. It discusses the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for organic listings and paid search like Google AdWords for sponsored listings. Key topics covered include link building, keyword research, on-page optimization, local SEO, analytics, and case studies. The goal is to help attendees maximize their search engine visibility and marketing results through both free and paid search channel techniques.

1. Maximizing Search Engine Marketing with Susan Barnes for SFSU CEL Integrated Marketing Program March 4 - 14, 2009

2. Introductions A bit about me and a lot about YOU Please tell us your name, your company, what you want to be when you grow up and what you hope to get out of this class

3. What do you need? A Web Site with Search Engine Friendly Content Human Friendly Content Keywords Links A reason to share and return

4. What is Search Engine Marketing? What is Marketing? Mar-ket-ing the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.

5. What is Search Engine Marketing? Using search engines to promote your product or service online. A potential customer goes online and searches for your product. There are two possible results: They find you.  They don’t find you. 

6. What is Search Engine Marketing? If you are not on the first page of search results, you are unlikely to be found. There are two ways to be found: Organic (“FREE”) listings Sponsored listing (Paid search, PPC or Pay Per Click)

8. What is SEO? For Organic “Free” listing placement you need SEO aka Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the act of carefully designing and coding your web site so that it is very friendly to search engines. How do you do that?

9. What is SEO? Remember that search engines are spiders and then ask yourself: What do spiders like? Fresh food (fresh content) Webs (link love) Quality (links and content)

10. What is SEO? What makes up a number one ranking on a search engine results page? Each engine has a different algorithm Al-go-rithm a set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps, as for finding the greatest common divisor.

11. What is SEO? For search engines the algorithm takes into consideration: The number of keywords in the content Where the keywords display, are they in the title, meta data, hyperlinks, headings, alt tags? What is the keyword relevancy? How popular is the website? I.e. Link Popularity or PageRank. Is the site readable? Does the site allow easy indexing?

12. Which Search Engine Should You Focus On?

13. Which Search Engine Should You Focus On?

14. Which Search Engine Should You Focus On?

17. What are the benefits? People are looking for you online and more importantly they are looking on search engines. Open 24/7 anytime, anywhere Cost effective

18. What Are Your Goals? Get Traffic Increase Awareness Sell your product your services your brand Generate leads

19. Success Strategies Understand where you are in the market Competitor Research on search engines and on their sites Common Sense http://www.compete.com http://www. linkpopularity .com Grade your site http://www.grader.com

20. Success Strategies Build your keyword list What can you learn from your competitors and how? Google’s Keyword Suggestion tool Wordtracker is a fee based service, but you can try it for free at KeywordDiscovery is another service for a fee, but you can try it out to see if you like it To The Web Tools

21. Web & Blog Success Strategies Content is Queen Nothing beats good content If you offer value, you will be revered Be real, be generous, be valuable

22. SEO Success Strategies Courage with Code Code need not be scary Ask your webmaster Do It Yourself Hire a Consultant Basics to know Title Tag Meta Data Hyperlinks Heading tags Alt text

23. SEO Success Strategies Link Love Know your link popularity and how you stack up against your competition Link to other valuable content Ask other websites to link to you

24. SEO Success Strategies Submitting Your Site http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/index.html [FREE] http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html http://www.dmoz.org/add.html [FREE]

25. SEO Success Strategies Articles Build Content Create Opportunities to earn links Build Credibility http://www.articlesbase.com/ Find others (hint search, look at email newsletter content)

26. Paid Search PPC, CPC, Sponsored Listings http: //adwords . google .com Yahoo Search Marketing Microsoft AdCenter

27. Paid Search Google AdWords and AdSense: What’s the difference?

28. Paid Search Google Broad match Phrase match Exact match Negative keywords

29. Paid Search Google Broad match: dark chocolate The dark and dreamy chocolate Phrase match: “dark chocolate” The dark chocolate was dreamy Exact match: [dark chocolate] Dark chocolate Negative keywords: -milk, -white, -truffle only dark, not anything else or only chocolate not (dark)-night or (dark)-humor

30. Paid Search Don’t 1. create a long list of less than targeted keywords 2. fail to identify unique aspects of your product or service 3. forget to add keywords in your ad text 4. direct users solely to your home page 5. create single ad groups 6. utilize single campaigns 7. use broad match only 8. fail to optimize ad serving for your ads 9. fail to track results 10. enter the content network without modifying bids

31. Paid Search Do 1. Create a focused list of target words 2. Identify unique aspects of your product or service 3. Remember to add keywords in your ad text 4. Use the appropriate URL 5. create multiple ad groups 6. utilize multiple campaigns 7. use broad match, phrase match, exact match and negative keyword terms 8. optimize ad serving for your ads 9. track results (analytics) 10. Modify bids on content network ads

32. Local Google Local and Maps Must have a physical address Reviews are good Process Pictures Details

33. Local Google Local

34. Local Google Local

35. Local Google Local

36. Local Google Maps

37. Local Yahoo Maps

38. Local Yahoo Maps

39. Success Strategies Analytics To improve you must measure The process is ongoing Monitor at least monthly http://analytics.google.com View and decide based on changes in: Number of visits Average length of time spent Top visited pages Referring sites Top keyword phrases Search engine traffic

40. Case Studies / Hands On Workshop Volunteer your site for review

41. Thank You! Please keep in touch [email_address] http://www. classesforcauses .org http://www.linkedin.com/in/susanbarnes http://www.twitter.com/susby