Search Engine Marketing & Optimization

1. Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Movin’ On Up! How to get better rankings and drive traffic to your Web site.

2. First Things First To effectively drive traffic you must ask: • Who is your target audience? • What do you want them to do on your Web site? • How will you get a return on your investment? • What is your available budget? Source: American Marketing Association

3. Search Engine Facts • 84% of online Americans used search engines (107 million) – a Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2004. • 75% of Internet users visit search engines each month – Online Publishers Association and Nielsen/NetRatings, 2004. • Search engines on top (41%) compared to other processes when consumers were asked how they find product Web sites – DoubleClick study, 2003.

4. Web is First Source “Admissions officials know their Web sites are the first point of contact for prospective students. It has changed from the Internet being a supplement to the Internet to being the first source.” – Judy Hingle, director, professional development, National Association for College Admission Counseling

5. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) • Form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote Web sites by increasing their visibility in the search engine results. • SEM is the practice of buying paid search listings, different from SEO which seeks to obtain better free search listings. • SEM methods include: search engine optimization, paid placement and paid inclusion. Source: Wikipedia

6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • Improves ranking of a Web site in “natural,” “organic” or "algorithmic” search results • Increases site traffic • Assists in “converting” unique visitors to customers • Considers how people search and how search engines index

7. SEO Impacts Organic Results

8. SEO Tactics • Get your keywords onto your pages: • Meta data behind the scenes • Title tags • Description tags • Keyword tags • Visible Content • Build relevant links and link popularity

9. SEO Tips - Choosing the Best Keywords Pace Yourself

10. Tips on Choosing Keywords • Think through business goals & objectives. • Think through brand names. • Watch the broad search terms. • Be careful with narrow search terms. • Check Google competing pages. • Watch the quotation marks.

11. Tips on Choosing Keywords (continued) • The singular vs. plural debate. • Don’t get excited about misspellings. • Give low numbers a shot. • Learn how to form search terms. • Know how people search. • Two-word phrases (32.58%) • Three-word phrases (25.61%) 2004 report by OneStat, an expert in Web analytics

12. Tips on Choosing Keywords (continued) • Be careful when mining keywords from competitors’ Web sites. • Don’t use competitors’ corporate names or brands. • Ask people – all kinds. • Dust off your thesaurus (or go online). • Analyze log files.

13. Search Engine Optimization – What You Can Do • Register your site. • Ex. http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html • Keep keywords and meta tags current. • Spread keywords throughout content; revise text as necessary. • Charge someone with monitoring and updating keyword referrals, and search engine referrals and placement.

14. SEO No No’s Avoid Bad Techniques

15. Search Engine Optimization Don’ts • Don't use frames in the page design • Avoid long URLs and “=” and “?” • Don’t duplicate copy

16. Description Overload • Avoid long meta descriptions. • Laundry list of keywords may not match content.

17. Massive keyword repetition in a small space may annoy Web site visitors. Looks blatant. Overdone Visible Text

18. Too Many Links • Yes, links in content are useful. • Too many may be viewed as spam.

19. Text in Unusual Places • Avoid all forms of hidden text. • Make font colors and sizes match design. • Excessive keywords offer no value.

20. An SEO Case Study www.kent.edu

21. Content Modifications

22. Meta Data in Source Code

23. Let’s Test It!

24. KSU SEO May 2007 Ranking Highlights

25. KSU SEO Traffic Highlights

26. KSU SEO Search Engine Traffic Highlights

27. Other SEO Case Studies • http://www.littletikes.com • http://www.clevelandclinic.com • http://customcritical.fedex.com • http://completetocompete.info

28. An SEM Case Study www.kent.edu

29. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) • Also known as paid search. • Pay only when users actually click on an ad. • Supplements search engine optimization; offers critical and timely traffic.

30. Sponsored link – means we’re paying for this term.

31. Sponsored link – means we’re paying for this term.

33. PPC Summary • Kent State ads were seen 344,934 times. • Searchers clicked a Kent State ad and visited the landing page 11,633 times. • Total cost for the clicks was $3,657.72. • From the landing page, visitors clicked to the 'Get More Info' page 1,370 times. • Google Analytics showed there were 1,149 signups for campus tours during the campaign timeframe.

34. Traffic and SEO Resources • American Marketing Association • http://www.marketingpower.com • Fathom SEO • http://www.fathomseo.com • http://fathomseo.blogspot.com • WordTracker • www.wordtracker.com • Know your link popularity • www.checkyourlinkpopularity.com • Free Search Engine Marketing Tools • www.marketleap.com • UCM Resources • www.kent.edu/ucm

35. Questions? E-mail smoore1@kent.edu