Search Marketing Strategy Tip #1 (SEM)

Search Marketing Strategy Tips are great, everyone gives them, even Google them selves give out SEM tips, tricks and best practice ideas! But not everyone gives you functional, industry Search Marketing Strategy Tips & Advice. So I thought I might start a bit of a trend and give SEM tips & advice based on current, live examples! So here we go;

Search Marketing Strategy Tip #1: Don't Sponsor Your Business/Company Name. But before you kick and scream for your brand, hear me out!

The basic benefits of search marketing are pretty clear, you get highly targeted traffic and you only pay per click! (not per impression) So the more popular the keywords you choose are, the more money (clicks) you'll spend on a Search Marketing Campaign.

Now, half the reason you probably started search marketing was to get a greater (targeted) exposure for minimal cost to your marketing budget. Now, your Search Marketing Strategy probably includes sponsoring your own business name to ensure anyone looking for you, gets straight to your website! Right?

Thought so, NOW STOP IT - turn that keyword off!
Search Marketing Campaigns and Search Engine Optimisation should work hand in hand and if they don't you're spending a lot of valuable money on a something very easy to do - for free.

Now, when I say "don't sponsor your business/company name" I mean, don't!! If you Google your business name/company name, you should come up in first place for your exact name. (if you don't then, you better email me!)

Now going off (2) key issues with Search Marketing;

1. Lazy Searchers (people who always click the first listing and don't really read it)
2. Credibility Searchers (people who only click paid ads as this think they are trusted)

So what you have here, is probably 70% of all users now clicking on your paid Ad, when just a few pixels below your free Ad is sitting there waiting to be clicked. And because your paid ad is nicely highlighted by Google / Yahoo / NineMSN above your natural listing - you're spending perhaps... $1 - $2 - $4 - $7 per click on your own business name?

Lets make a modest calculation - say $2 per click (probably much more) for a popular business name like - eTrade. A popular, world wide online share trading platform! Lets say in Australia alone, they are searched for, and clicked - 100? 200? lets say 300 times per day...

So 300 clicks per day x $2 a click is a $600 per day Search Marketing Campaign spend. Just on your own business name. Now seeing that eTrade is ranked No.1 for their business name they will start getting upset once we times the $600 per day x 7 days = $4,200. Times $4,200 x 4 is $16,800 per month which turns out to be whopping $201,600 per year spend on just your business name!

I guarantee you, if eTrade's marketing managers (or more importantly their MD/CEO) looked closely at this instead of listening to their Advertising Agency or Google / Yahoo them selves - they would be on shocked to find out the amount of money they would have saved for use in other mediums.

So below lets view a bunch of top companies with Australian websites that are throwing away hundres of thousands of dollars to Search Engines advertisng their own name, when they already rank in the number 1 position!

eTrade: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Roses Only: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Optus: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Virgin Mobile: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Nokia: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Holden: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Babies Galore: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Samsung: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

So, there you have it - Search Marketing Strategy Tip #1 - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name! Get your agency to be more strategic - sure, you're business name will get great click through rates, better conversions and more traffic - BUT - you're already ranked number 1 anyway, so don't throw your marketing budget away, keep that money and invest that saving back into some form of online advertising!

Search Marketing Strategy Tip #2 Coming soon!