What is Political Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?
by Trent Partridge

Search engine marketing is the art and science of achieving high rankings in search engines and directories based on their dynamics and ever changing search algorithms. Search engine marketers use proven techniques, methodologies, technology, software and experience to gain search engine visibility. Search engine marketing starts at understanding the clients' target audience and marketing goals.

Search Engine Marketing is NOT:

- A $39 submit to 1500 search engines solution

- A cut and paste HTML page with meta tags

- Automated program submission

- A one size fits all marketing approach;

- A book and search engine software

- Re-wording your title, keywords and descriptions or

- A one man create all operation

 

Nugget:

Having the most beautiful, interactive, or advanced website in the world will not attract the visitors or generate the business that you need to create a successful Internet business.

Although no single marketing strategy is sufficient to build a long-term business plan, when it comes to the Internet, ranking high in the search engines searches is the Number 1 place to start. It's senseless to attempt to do business online if the user cannot locate your website.

Professional Search Engine Marketing Requires

-A SEO HTML Editor

-An Algorithm SEO Specialist

-Optimal Search Engine Mix Research

-Website Architectural Strategy

-Utilization of SEO Applications

-Audience Query Language

-Website Traffic Behavior Analysis

-Critical Individual Manual Submission

-Search Engine Visibility Implementation

 

Top Research Companies Prove Search Engine Marketing is #1

Everyday millions of people use search engines looking for product or services to buy. If your website is not in the top 20 searches you are losing valuable customers and revenue. CyberAtlas reports that 56 percent of Internet users don't bother looking through more than two pages of results on search engines. The fact is your competitors who are in the top 20 are taking your customers and revenue. The smartest marketing campaign a company with marketing intelligence can create is Search Engine Marketing.

The importance of search engine marketing is paramount to your website's long term growth, increased revenue and competitive advantage.

ActivMedia Research reported the #1 marketing or promotional tool used by top eCommerce websites is Search Engine Positioning

The top 3 Internet research companies Nielsen/Netratings, Forester Research and NUA have reported overwhelmingly that Search Engine Marketing is the #1 source for targeted search engine traffic.

Jupiter Research reported Less than one-third of marketers use agencies for SEM. Therefore, agencies must shift the focus of their service offerings from planning and buying media to measuring and optimizing campaigns. Keyword management and landing page strategies present prime opportunities.

How Users Find Your Website?

Many companies feel the best way to gain traffic to a website is through TV, Magazine or Banner Ads, but, this is far from true. The Meta-Group (Business Intelligence) reports that search engine marketing is the best way to gain traffic to your website.  

How Users Find Your Website:

Targeted Email 1%

TV Spots 1.2%

By Accident 1.4%

Magazine Ads 2.1

Word Of Mouth 20%

Random Surfing 20%

Search Engines 46%

Nugget:

The key is while you're investing in other methods of advertising; your competitors are investing in search engine marketing. Your competition clearly understands the tremendous advantage of search engine marketing. Search engine marketing has proven to be the most cost effective and targeted way of gaining qualified traffic.

SEM Nuts and Bolts…

Search engine marketing is extremely challenging. Improper marketing techniques such as "bait and switch", cloaked pages and spamming can result in the website being excluded from the major search engines. Hiring an online marketing service requires the trust that the contractor will accurately represent your business on the World Wide Web, will bring traffic relevant to your business, and will use methods resulting in long term ranking and success in the search engines.

Search engine marketing is a process.  It requires: Starting with careful keyword relevancy analysis, competition research and familiarization of the services/industry being addressed, the actual optimization and coding of the website, and first submission… and that's just the beginning.

In essence, the more optimized pages you have in the engines for high keyword ranking, the better the chances of a prospective client finding your website.

The Benefits of Search Engine Marketing

• Targeted Traffic

• Lifetime of Quality Prospects

• Increased Revenue

• Low Cost Advertising

• Excellent Return Of Investment

 Nugget:

Search engine marketing is only for the serious website owners who want to increase revenue, gain qualified traffic, beat their competitors and reduce advertising spending. These owners understand that search engine marketing can create these opportunities. They also understand that search engine marketing is not like a banner that you can put up the next day and see traffic. It takes time to achieve search engine ranking.

The Truth About Search Engine Marketing

What are the challenges of a search engine marketer? If you search for almost any keyword phrase it will result in between 50,000 and 200 million keyword results. A SEM's goal is to get your website ranked in the top 20 of these searches. Everyday there are one million new websites added to search engines that effect SEM. In addition, search engines constantly upgrade their search technology for better, more accurate, user searching. Hence, these changes affect the algorithms of website rankings and create additional challenges. Similarly directories change guidelines for user search usability. SEM's have to make quick adjustments sometimes daily to keep pages ranked.

For an SEM to achieve top 20 ranking in any search engine is a monumental task. Simple submission software, meta-tag adjustments and templated doorway pages are dinosaur methods to achieving high rankings in the search engines.

It takes up to five (5) months to get ranked in some of the top search engines. No two search engine search algorithms are the same. For example, Yahoo and Google both have a different algorithm for searching.  This means each search engine has its own individual methodology of ranking websites. This uniqueness makes search engine marketing extremely challenging. However, back in the day, you could bulk submit to search engines and get a top 20 ranking. Now, search engines have their own technology that bans this type of submission and could potentially ban a website indefinitely.

Banners and Pay Per Click vs. Search Engine Marketing

Banners, Pay Per Clicks, Pop ups/unders, Sponsored Links, Google Ad Words, MSN AD Center, Yahoo, and Newsletter advertising are great forms of advertising that can cost a lot of money and potentially create a low Return Of Investment.

Nugget:

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one of the best investments for marketing your site on the Internet. The top research companies have reported this information for years. So please make sure you create a sound lifetime strategy for SEM. I guarantee you will find it one of the most cost effective ways to reach your goals.

Search Engine Optimization

The first question everyone always asks me is ‘How do I get ranked in the search engines?' All website owners desire a high ranking in the search engines based upon keywords associated with their website or occupation. For example a model wants to be ranked high in the key search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) for model.

It goes without saying that, a photographer wants to be on the first pages of all the search engines for photographer or photography. And a hip-hop artist wants to be ranked high for rap and hip-hop. So on and so forth.  You get the idea, right? 

The higher you are ranked in the search engines, the more traffic you will receive. The more traffic to your website you receive, leads to the potential of more castings, more music downloads, more photo shoots and ultimately increased revenue. Besides Search Engine placement, Internet Marketing, once applied will teach you many alternative ways to gain traffic to your website.  Search engines serve as a great tool to gain tremendous traffic to a website.

Before I begin discussions regarding search engines and rankings, understand that getting ranked in the search engines is not an easy task. As a matter of fact, it is a very precise, tedious, time consuming, burdensome task.  Some words are so difficult to get ranked some of the top Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) professionals will decline jobs.

I am a Professional Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) and it is not the most fun, glamorous, or easy job. You can be ranked #1 in the search engines for 6 months and then drop down to a #60 ranking in a day.

I have known companies online and offline that exclusively relied upon the top key search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN for traffic to their websites. This reliance would be profitable for a time until one of the search engines would change their algorithm and like magic, overnight, the company would be out of business the next day.

Every two years or so there's usually a big upset.  A major Search Engine Company because of internal reasons will change its algorithms, leaving companies and website owners caught with their hands in the cookie jar.  This has happened when Google changed its algorithm three (3) times in a six year period. Some companies ceased to exist after these changes.

Nugget: 

I tell everyone to avoid this upset, make sure you have a diversified Internet Marketing portfolio. I especially reinforce this to candidates who use one or two search engines as their primary means to securing revenue.

Written by Trent Partridge Political Internet Marketer, Political Social Media Marketer

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