The scope of Search Engine Marketing, is normally to increase product sales or member acquisition by means of

• Paid search

• Natural search

• Online PR

• Online reputation

• Social Media stimulation (Facebook, Twitter)

The above acquisition strategies are often supported by the following retention and re-engagement strategies primarily using

• Regular newsletters

• Triggered notifications

A good brief looks at both short term goals and sustainability. Over a defined period of milestones it is accepted that the balance of emphasis will transition, with Pay Per Click forming the mainstay of short term traffic driving initiatives, whilst Online PR and Natural Search terms ramp up.

Key Performance Indicators

Total Monthly Sales or Acquisitions

In short the goal will almost always be to increase new membership as quickly as possible, within constraining KPIs set out below.

Cost Per Sale or Acquisition

The upper limit for the average cost per acquisition (new member) would be set at £x, depending on the value per lead or sale. Acquisition costs are tracked (with cookie where applicable) to identify the spread of costs for various keywords, and approaches. In order to maximise total monthly acquisitions, the goal will always be to drive this figure as low as possible and focus spend on specific low cost per acquisition activities capable of driving volume acquisition. The detailed tracking of cost per acquisition is the fundamental strategy guiding the campaign. By accurately tracking cost per acquisition across the various strands and initiatives, it is possible to maximise the most effective approaches and deliver the highest yield of new membership within the financial targets.

Monthly Spend

Monthly spend is normally be capped. Conditional on the Cost per Sale / Acquisition target being met, the goal is to spend as much as possible of the agreed monthly spending cap, driving the highest possible number of new sales / leads / members.

Seasonal Considerations

In considering acquisition strategies, it is essential to consider the seasonal nature of the target audience.

• PPC can be switched on or off instantly

• Natural Search term targeting has a time lag

• Online PR will be primarily event driven (season start etc)

With this in mind, a coherent strategy acknowledges the seasonal calendar, as well as the current footballing news and hot topics.

Weekly Browse habits

Over a period of time, keyword and acquisition analysis will also show CPA (cost per acquisition) CPS(Cost Per Sale) trends, based on the weekly cycle.

By monitoring these trends it is possible to significantly optimise campaigns. For example it may be that CPA rates are significantly lower on a Friday and higher on a Saturday. By concentrating funds and activity on Friday PPC, more new acquisitions can be driven for the equivalent spends.

Competitive traffic targeting Strategies

Certain Keyword targeting may be derived generic for your sector. Competitive traffic targeting will look to target people looking to spend money with other sites and divert them to your site, by selecting keywords associated with them. This is commonly seen amongst insurance companies who target each others TV ad campaigns.

Search Engine Copy and Quality Score

Search engines measures both

• Paid search result quality score

• Natural search result quality score

To measure this, search engines take the number of clicks and divides it by the total number of impressions a site is shown for a particular keyword.

With natural search, high quality score indicates relevant results, and search engines reward this by placing sites with high quality score, higher up this listings. With paid search, low quality score sites will need to bid more per keyword to achieve the same position as sites with a higher quality score. For key phrases with very low quality scores, pay per click ad networks will block those keywords from returning at all.

Quality score is directly related to the text returned in the search results. Optimising this text, will significantly increase the number of click throughs, quality score and thus work to reducing cost per acquisition.

Custom Landing Pages

In order to increase the likely hood of conversion, it is recommended different search terms have individual landing pages.

PPC landing pages are often specifically funneled into the product or signup page, with text selling the product / site, showing FABs (feature advantage benefit), and encouraging purchase / sign up. Landing pages are even sometimes be stripped of menus, with the aim of driving the arriving costumers through the sale process, without distraction.

Wikipedia defines a landing page as:

'The page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.'

Wikipedia’s definition sums it up nicely but there is certainly more to a great landing page then relevant and keyword rich content. Here’s 10 things that you should be looking at when optimizing a landing page:

- Relevant Content

A landing page’s content should be directly related to organic search results, PPC campaign, anchor text in inbound links and any other targeted inbound advertising, online and offline. If people don’t get what they expect, they will be more likely to leave.

- Multiple Landing Pages

A landing page shouldn’t necessarily be your homepage. In many instances a homepage is a good landing page. However, for more targeted traffic and better results, you want a landing page to be focused on specific offer and specific call for action. To accomplish this, a given website should have multiple landing pages. Create some deep link landing pages that will focus on specific offer and your conversion rate will be higher.

- Focus on Functionality

More and more visitors seem to judge the professionalism and credibility of a site by its design. To satisfy this, many website owners concentrate on the design aspect instead of focusing on its functionality. A well-designed landing page is essentially worthless if the prospect can’t accomplish anything. While I wouldn’t suggest skimping on the design, it shouldn’t be your priority. Focus on the exact steps you want your visitor to take and design a page with that in mind.

- Call To Action

You got visitors to your landing page, now direct them to take action. Make it clear and highly noticeable without overwhelming your audience. Whether it’s a sign-up form or a “buy now” button, make it the focus of your page.

- Send a Clear Message

Keep your landing page clean and clutter free so your visitors stay focused on your message. Emphasize the biggest reasons that they should carry out the applicable call to action with larger text, contrasting colors, images. Make it easier for them to scan the content by using lists and getting right to the point.

- Offer Incentive

Bribing your visitors with freebies and samples is a proven method of enticing them to sign up. Offer more than your competition but don’t sell yourself short either. Provide a list of reasons why your offer is better and what exactly the visitor can expect. Provide references and testimonials.

- Make Visitors Stay

Avoid sending your visitors to another page unless it is absolutely necessary. That includes any internal navigation as well as external banners. If you remove all distractions and limit navigation options, you stand a better chance of keeping your visitors around.

- Simple is Better

Make it easy for your visitors to complete the action you want them to. Less confusion and decision making for your visitor means better conversions rate for your landing page. Don’t offer multiple choices and throw in optional extras. Focus on the offer the page was created for.

- Power of Freebies

Everyone likes free offers. They are hard to resist and can be a powerful conversion tool. Whether a call to action is free or something free is received as a result of carrying out a call to action, it certainly doesn’t hurt. If your competition charges for something and you offer it for free, you’ll win the customer. Remember, just because you make a free offer doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be quality.

- Testing

Some companies tend to concentrate on getting traffic / visitors to their websites. Then they wait for the magical thing to happen they're waiting for the visitors to simply buy, for the money to start rolling in. But getting your visitors to turn into paying customers involves a little bit of work.

HALO Effect for harmonised PPC, SEO and PR

Typical Click through rates for natural or paid search terms at the top of page 1 of Google can range from 20%-30% depending on the effectiveness of the search copy (text on the page). When two of the top slots are both occupied, this soars to 70% +, and if there is a brand awareness 80% +.

A harmonised search strategy brings significantly improved results. Since SEO strategies take time and attempts to force them can result in blacklisting, marrying the SEO strategy to the most effective PPC phrases, allows capitalisation of the most effective paid phrases and realisation of the “Halo effect”.

Phasing of the Elements of Time

Natural Search

Initial emphasis should be focussed, with link building strategies to optimise a limited select group of natural terms. Natural search strategies can take months to come to fruition.

Online PR

The online PR goal should be regular and interesting online press releases each month. These must be optimised for SEO and be contextually relevant to the landing pages. A good and exciting press release can be picked up and spread around the internet.

Paid Search

The bulk of immediate results will be derived from paid search. Whilst many automated software packages exist for optimising paid search campaigns, there is no substitution for careful, continuous, manual optimisation.

Mortgage PPC / SEO analogy

Following the analogy PPC is comparable to paying interest and SEO to paying down the principle. Few people have the capital or the will to buy property outright, and so take out mortgages. Initially the majority of money pays the interest and a small amount pays down the principle. Over the life of the mortgage, the ratio of money paying down the principle increases vs. the amount used to pay the interest.

With SEO and PPC the quickest results will come from PPC, but the sustained results come from long term SEO. It is possible to divert all funding to PPC, but for a modest investment SEO results will start to show returns over time.

As ever the optimum strategy is the one that focuses on cost per acquisition. The exact ratios will fall out naturally from the statistics as SEO eventually becomes more cost effective for select terms.