Search Engine Marketing Kit

by Robert Earls

Having an online presence is much more than creating a fantastic website. In fact that's the first of a long list of things you should do if you want to make your website profitable. This book is about the journey you need to go through to maximise the number of visitors to your website.

Starting a new bricks and mortar retail business is full of decisions - what should you call your business?; what should you put on signs outside the shop?; which directories should you be listed in YellowPages / Thompson, and should you pay for enhanced listing?; how should you advertise, be it trade magazines, local papers, flyers? Each of these decisions has an online equivalent, and this kit aims to show you why you should do it, and how to achieve it.

There are many search engine marketing (SEM) companies who provide a range of services to do all this for you, and if you have the budget, then it may well be worth employing the services of an expert in SEM. However, if your budget is limited, or if you want to start your own SEM consultancy, this book could be what you need.

It should be said that this book is aimed at those who are already fairly familiar with web technologies, however, if you are quick and willing to learn, it's written well and easy to pick up.

Lets say you wanted to start up a restaurant selling traditional Welsh food. You might decide to call it "Bwyd", and use the name on all your signs, business cards and other marketing materials. Despite being the Welsh word for food, Bwyd does not convey what your company sells, even if you do speak Welsh, so it would be better to have "Bwyd Traditional Welsh Restaurant" on your signs and cards etc. Anyone driving past, or seeing a list of all shops in the area, would have a better understanding of what you do, otherwise potential customers would have to look through the restaurant window to have a better understanding.

A similar situation arises in the online world and this falls under the heading of search engine optimisation (SEO). Making a professional looking website is good for consumer confidence, but not necessarily good for search engines to be able to look at your website and decide what main point of it is. It might be easy for a human to spot pictures of patrons eating, and waiting staff in traditional Welsh costume, but search engines need good keyword-rich text in order to decide. This book shows you how and where to put your keywords on your website and also explains why you should not over-do it.

Personal recommendations are a great way to build business. If your restaurant was in an independent guide to great Welsh restaurants, anyone reading the guide would have a good impression of your business. Search engines realise this and because they want to give users who search for "Welsh restaurants" the highest quality links first, websites that have links from good quality respected resources will rate higher than those that don't. Your job, as search engine marketeer, is to track down these resources and convince them that you are worth linking to. This book explains the importance of links and how they affect your position.

Since the changes in telephone directory enquiries, it's become quite expensive to find a telephone number. It can now cost 25p upwards to find a local business' telephone number - wouldn't it be better if it was free, and the business you're calling paid for the service, after all you're about to spend money with them! PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising does just that, for the online world, and is the latest tool in the search engine marketeer's tool kit. Companies who bid the highest amount will be able to get their adverts listed first.

You might decide that "Welsh Restaurant" was a good keyword was worth paying Google Adwords or Overture, in order to get your restaurant mentioned first. However, this may not be such a good idea, as you will be competing with all the Welsh restaurants who are trying to do the same as you A bidding war could ensue and you may find yourself competing with Michelin starred restaurants who can afford much more than you can. You might find that "Welsh Restaurant" is just not value for money. However, "Welsh Restaurant Aberystwyth" may not be searched for as frequently, but be cheaper to bid on and may bring in more customers for less outlay. This book will take you though setting up a Pay-Per-Click marketing campaign and how to improve your chances of someone clicking on your advert.

Mastering all of these skills takes some time and as I mentioned earlier there are companies that can do all this for you, at a price. But if all of this whets your appetite you may be interested in becoming a search engine consultant. A full chapter of this book takes you through creating and running a professional SEM business, from developing an SEM strategy, to pricing, to customer service and beyond.

The kit includes a CD ROM, which contains spreadsheets to help organise the tasks involved for businesses doing SEM in-house, and some additional spreadsheets and presentations which would help the budding SEM consultancy. There are a number of tools available on the market which would help you semi-automate the considerable amount of work involved, and these online tools and software downloads are covered in the last chapter.

The fact there is an entire book covering the subject of SEM shows there is a considerable amount of knowledge required to make the most of your website. This book covers ground that other books have covered before, but brings it up to date and takes it one step further with help and advice offered to SEM professionals.

In the SEM world, 6 months is a long time and books like this are in danger of become obsolete quickly, but Sitepoint's "Search Engine Marketing Kit" makes sensible suggestions which will stand the test of time, and avoids "Black Hat" SEM, unethical methods which are viewed as cheating the system by search engines, and could have those using such methods banned from the search engines indexes.

The kit is comprehensively written, and would be extremely valuable to both budget conscious SMEs, and those considering a career in the field of Search Engine Optimisation.

The "Search Engine Marketing Kit" is written by Dan Thies and published by Sitepoint. The kit costs $197.00 (£113.25) and can be ordered from Sitepoint at http://www.sitepoint.com/books/sem1.

About the Author:
Robert Earls has worked for many years as a Technical Consultant in the IT industry. He now runs a successful online business www.argentice.co.uk.

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