Search Marketing InsiderPay Per Click, Social Media and SEO Strategies – An Internet Marketing Institute Publication

As search engine marketing evolves at light speed pace, new opportunities are constantly arising–making Search Engine Marketing (SEM) that much more challenging and harder for marketers to keep up with. PPC Summit recently surveyed 3500 past PPC Summit attendees who provided valuable insight on the top areas where Search Engine Marketers feel they need more education. 

According to survey respondents, the topics that Search Marketers want to learn more about to improve their ROI are:

• Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign Optimization
• Integrating Paid Search, Organic and Social Media Marketing (SMM)
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

While Search Marketing and Search Engine Optimization remain strong revenue drivers for online marketers, Social Media is rapidly moving up in importance. With social media sites like Facebook (500+ million users), LinkedIn (70+ million users), Twitter (106+ million users) and YouTube (300 million accounts) all securing their justifiable placement in the marketing mix, SEM specialists have to be on top of their game in order to keep up.

ISSUE #1 – Pay Per Click Campaign Optimization: The goal in pay per click marketing is to write compelling ad copy that directs prospects to your site or landing page and then entices them to sign up or buy your product/service. Easier said than done, right?

According to the Survey Results, 82.5% of SEM respondents feel they need to focus more on PPC Campaign Strategies by: 

• Improving their Quality Score. One way to improve your Quality Score–and pay less per click– is by properly using header tags (more here).
• Utilizing Website Optimizer & Google Analytics: Paying more attention to your analytics and constantly analyzing your cost-per-customer can really help your results.
• Fine-tuning Google AdWords PPC strategies: Save time and optimize your AdWords campaigns with the AdWords Interface.

ISSUE #2 – Social Media and Search Marketing Merge: Your customers are on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more. Incorporating these social media sites into your marketing mix is a must in today’s SEM world. Use Social Media Marketing to complement your paid search and organic marketing strategy and reach a broader audience.

More than two-thirds of Survey Respondents ranked “Integrating Social Media with Search Marketing” in their top three priorities. Here are some quick tips: 

• Incorporate Keywords. Use keywords in your account names and all SMM communications ie. SEO blog postings, Tweets, Facebook updates, etc
• Develop Quality Content. This is critical in attracting quality prospects through the Social Media Channel.
• Social Media Time Management. Streamline your communications with automation tools.

ISSUE #3 – Search Engine Optimization: We have heard from attendees–countless times–how they invested so much time and money on creating a fabulous SEO campaign, but in the end conversions were low due to poorly structured websites or landing pages.

Up to 82% of the SEMs polled told us they need help with their SEO campaigns. You can start by: 

• Creating Appropriate Site Architecture. Customers should be able to find what they are looking for on your site in a click or two. If it’s more than three clicks, then you should re-think your site structure and messaging.
• Using Tools Many SEO Experts Use. Utilize the industry leading tools like:
  • SEOMoz (http://www.seomoz.org/) – full complement of SEO tools, to check backlinks, PageRank, keyword research & density etc.
  • Google Webmaster Tools – research search queries, keywords, crawl rates, backlinks, diagnostics, internal linking, robots.txt, etc.
  • SEOTools for Firefox (http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html);
  • Wordstream (http://www.wordstream.com/seo-keyword-management) – keyword research & management.

You can learn more about these challenges and how to solve them at the upcoming
PPC Summit Presents: Search & Social Media Successconference. We built a brand new three-track curriculum based on the results from this attendee survey. On Sept. 21-22 Marketing Professionals will gather in Los Angeles to hear from an impressive line up of experts in SEM/SEO/SMM who will share their top strategies to increase search and social media marketing ROI.

We look forward to seeing you in September!

Kelly Larsen
Director of Marketing, PPC Summit