Don’t Forget Search Engine Marketing

Despite the growth and popularity of social media, search engines will continue to be the start point for most people looking for specific information. This is especially true as search engines, like Google and Bing, have begun including results from social network sites, like Twitter, in their results page. What this means for you is that a good search engine marketing plan should be on the table for your business.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

The definition of search engine marketing, also known as SEM, is optimizing your website and internet marketing strategies so that your site ranks high in the search engine for targeted keywords. If you remember, keywords are those words and phrases your prospects use to find information related to the product and services you offer.

For example, people looking to start a home based business may enter the keywords, ‘start a business’ or ‘home based business ideas’. Unless the results they get have a lot of spam in them, most people will not continue past the first 1-3 pages of the search results. Therefore, the goal of your search engine marketing efforts is to get your website to rank within those first three pages, preferably the first page, for the keywords your target audience is using.

What You Should Know About Search Engine Marketing

Now before you rush to your website and start loading it up with keywords there are a few things you should know about search engines that will make your search engine marketing more effective.

* Search Engines are Dynamic – Google, Bing, and Yahoo are selling a service just like you. They want to provide their users with the most relevant results for their search terms as they can. They are constantly evaluating web pages to make sure they are still good enough to be included in the search results pages. This means you must always be doing some kind of search engine marketing to maintain or improve your position in their indexes.

* Search Engines Don’t Rank Websites – Now this may seem like crazy talk especially after that long explanation on how search engines rank websites based on keywords. In all actuality, search engines rank individual web pages. This is a good thing because you can target a wide range of related keywords to maximize the amount of search engine traffic flowing to your site.

* All Keywords Are Not Created Equal – Ranking well for specific keywords is at the heart of your search engine marketing strategy. However, not all keywords are the same. Some keywords will send you prospects who are only doing research on a topic and others terms will send you people who are ready to buy or invest in the product you are selling. You need to rank for both and build a sales funnel that will send them to your “Buy Now” button.

Download my free social media checklist (sign up in sidebar) for a daily to do list of all the things you need to do to increase your following. For personalized help, contact me for a free consultation on the best way to market your business online including using Twitter and other internet business tools.

(photo credit: Sean Dreilinger)

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