The Persian guy from 300 (the one that was kicked down the well) never actually said that, but if they were talking about Search Engine Marketing, that’s probably what he would have said. He would have said that because often times folks start their campaigns without being selective about their keywords. And he’d be right. Having done the proper research and put some quality thought into your keywords, it can spell great financial return for your SEM campaign.
Wikipedia defines Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as s a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. Search engine optimization (SEO) “optimizes” website content to achieve a higher ranking in search results, for example, by incorporating specific keywords or links associated with the website. To piggyback on this statement, I looked to marketingterms.com, “Before pages can be optimized, research must be done to determine which keywords to target. This involves finding relevant keywords, determining their popularity, assessing the amount of competition, and deciding which keywords can be best supported with quality content.”
The reality is that no matter if you’re a novice or a professional (like Leon), you need to compile a list of keywords. The best way to start? By using common sense. What are the basic keywords that are engrained in your website like birthmarks? What keywords do you think will drive folks to your site? If you were searching the web, what words or phrases would you think of that when entered would trigger a link to your site? Simple, right? Now let’s start to take what we have and get a little creative. Common misspellings, words that mean the same thing, even slang terms should all be considered. I did read somewhere too that seasonal trends are key too. If I’m trying to launch something around Halloween, you best believe that I’m going to cater to most common searches around that time to try to maximize my exposure. And over at Keywordninja.com, they suggest long-tail keywords as key to a campaign’s success. They write, “Long tail keywords lead to higher conversions. Visitors arriving through multi-phrase search queries might be more likely to make purchases or convert on affiliate programs or recommendations. By targeting these long tail phrases, you are effectively targeting a market of potential buyers.” Sounds groovy.
But since I happen to be a creative type, thinking of keywords in and out of the box is fun for me. However (and this happens to us all once in a while), should you get thinking block, simply head over to the good guys at Google for Google Adwords (free!). Don’t like Larry and Sergey? Try Key Word Ninja (pay site). Or Word Stream (pay site). There are a plethora of sites out there. Just use whichever one floats your boat.
Now that you’ve got that in place, you simply need to make sure you have a solid campaign in place. Naturally, the good folks at Seed Corn Advertising are here to help, and search is something we specialize in. So the next time you’re trying to drive some traffic to your website, or your buddy calls and says, “Hey Bill, I really wanna drive more traffic to my website”, you know to go Seed Corn PPC and inquire as to how we can help you. Even if your name isn’t Bill.
About SeedCornPPC: Seed Corn Advertising is an online Advertising Network based in Los Angeles, California committed to establishing new business development partnerships and to grow your search network and ours.Learn more about SeedCornPPC by visiting us at
http://www.seedcornppc.com/