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!

Make My Logo Bigger Viral

Virals are great, but when they are made about sections of your own industry they are even better. Check out Make My Logo Bigger Cream and see for your self how your clients can ensure their logos are bigger!

Rodney Clark Website

Just a quick update here before we move on to more strategic matters, IdeaWorks Interactive has just launched (2) new sites for Rodney Clark. The first being a re-vamp of their previous flash site into a stylish CSS layout and the second being an interactive version of their catalogue.

Check them out below:
http://www.rodneyclark.com.au/
http://www.feelthedifference.com.au/

Frozen In Grand Central Station

Great little piece here, 200+ people gather and get involved in a plan to spend 5 minutes standing completely still (I'm assuming they are all amature actors) and in sync, they stand frozen together creating a very cool display.

Enjoy.

Microsoft Bids To Buy Yahoo! Inc

Google's D-Day is nearing, well - at least a day in which there may be an actual "competitor" in the market place for them to compete with. So Microsoft have finally done the inevitable - launching a takeover bid for Yahoo! Inc.

You'll see in my previous post some time back - "Microsoft to become a real Google competitor" that I was predicting the only company to possibly challenge Google, would be a Microsoft Super Company... Buying out the likes of Yahoo! & AOL.

So here is it, the official press release and $31 per share offer to buy out Yahoo! Inc. Official Microsoft Press Release - To Buy Yahoo!

What will the future now hold? Well if this goes through, then microsoft will be officially the largest "by far" super company in the world. The power that a company like that brings to the table is enormous, but will they have the smarts to out play Google?