Market-A-Site

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is a broad term used to refer to any marketing done through search engines and incorporates both Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Both SEO and PPC are inbound forms of direct marketing and are all about getting more traffic to your website.

When most people want to find something on the Internet they use a search engine (at least over 80% do) and there are several things that you can do to make it more likely that they will find your website when they do so. You can try and ensure that your website ranks highly in the organic or natural listings of the search engines (a practise called search engine optimisation) or you can advertise your site in the paid listings of the search results (pay-per-click advertising).

It is important to remember that search engine marketing is all about communicating with people that have already indicated an interest in what you have to offer and is a very targeted form of marketing.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Each of the leading search engines, such as Google, MSN and Yahoo, provide both free (organic) listings and paid listings when users search for a particular phrase or keyword.

Ranking highly in the organic listings is difficult and can take a long time to achieve. Paid advertising, on the other hand, allows your web site to be listed more quickly, more easily and with a greater degree of control - all for a cost, of course.

With pay-per-click advertising your ads are displayed as sponsored links on the top or side of the results pages of the major search engines. Rankings are determined through a bidding process; the more you are willing to pay-per-click the higher you rank. The challenge is to maximise your exposure and to gain the greatest click-through-rate possible while staying within your monthly budget.

These paid listings are commonly called pay-per-click advertisements as you only pay when someone clicks on your ad and is taken to your website.

Accountability

As with most search engine marketing, pay per click advertising is highly accountable, allowing you to monitor which keywords generate the best results for you, whether that be new sales or new subscribers to you online newsletter. If you know your margin on each sale, this allows you to accurately calculate your return on investment with respect to pay-per-click advertising. Google provides pay-per-click advertising through their own AdWords platform, while Yahoo and NineMSN use Overture to manage their paid listings.

Maximising your returns

To make the most out of your pay-per-click advertising campaign, you need to decide a few things: which keywords to target, which markets you want to reach and how much you are prepared to pay for each lead and ultimately for each conversion (click-through is getting them to your site, conversion is getting them to do what you want - subscribe to a newsletter, make a purchase etc).

It is also essential that you monitor certain key performance metrics of your campaign, such as cost-per-click (CPC), conversion rate and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) on a regular basis. Some industries have a 3-month or more sales cycle and so you must be prepared to give your campaign enough time to stabilise before making wholesale changes (minor changes can be made frequently and quickly).

"You can't get to your destination if you only purchase half of a plane ticket" - David Ogilvy.

Seach Engine Optimization Services

Mosaic Technologies has been practicing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services since the late 1990's and has developed a highly effective process for delivering top organic search engine results with both static and dynamic web sites.

In partnership with Mosaic Technologies we offer a full range of search engine optimization services and many choices to fit each client's unique needs. Our services are detailed here. You can choose various levels of service depending on your requirement and budget. You can go through our articles to learn more about SEO services and/or you can call us directly at (301) 873 5791 for an in-depth consultation and to have us best meet your needs by giving your website a top-down analysis for a customized package with long-term results.

The process involves three steps:

Mosaic's three step process focuses on the development of Organic Search Engine results rather than Pay-Per-Click. Organic search engine results are free and achieved through the use of specific techniques that make your site more relevant for specific keywords and key phrases to the various search engines. As the result of this increased relevance, the search engines will place a higher value on the site and thus give it a higher position and increased visibility for the specific keyword or key phrase.

In addition to traditional Search Engine Optimization, Mosaic Technologies also specializes in Dynamic Site Optimization - DSO™. Dynamic Site Optimization is the practice of building and optimizing a web site which only uses dynamic or "database driven" content.

Many e-commerce, subscription and membership oriented websites have pages which use dynamic content...unfortunately, most of these pages are created in such a way that the search engines are unable to index them. When a search engine is unable to index a page in your site, the page is virtually invisible on the web....so it is very important that all your dynamic pages are getting indexed.

Read more about Dynamic Site Optimization