This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
The Steps to Search Success
Despite the differences between organic and paid search, the basic steps to success are the same:
- Choose your target market segments. To get serious about search marketing, you need to focus on the keywords that searchers use that should find your site. Many of the keywords are the same between organic and paid search, but some marketers find that they can target more keywords for paid search or that some keywords are too expensive to be targeted outside organic search. We explore this step in detail in Chapter 6, “Choose Your Target Market Segments.”
- Get your content listed. Nothing else you do will matter if you don’t even appear in the search results. For organic search, you must ensure that your content is discoverable by the search engines. For paid search, you must work with each search engine individually to get your ads listed for the keywords you have targeted. In Chapter 7, we examine the various techniques required to ensure your content is in the game.
- Optimize your content. To rank well for popular keywords, you need to ensure that your paid search ads and your landing pages contain those words sprinkled in the right places. For paid search, you must also optimize your per-click bids to earn as much profit as possible. Chapter 8 walks you through what you need to know.
- Prove your content’s quality. Search engines are demanding; they don’t show their searchers low-quality content. For your content to make the grade, you need to create content that searchers like. Search engines look at links to your content and social media activity for organic search, and they check your clickthrough rate and other factors. We look at all the ways that search engines judge your content’s quality in Chapter 9.
If it sounds a bit overwhelming, fear not! That’s what the rest of this book is for. We’ll take you step by step to a successful search marketing program.