Win The Search Game

I just read an article on search engine marketing, reporting on a study that indicates double-digit industry growth for 2010.  This isn’t necessarily surprising to me.  What is surprising is the fact that of the 1,500 advertisers surveyed for the study, 56% of them reported that their keywords have become more expensive over the last year.

This opens the floodgates to a world of implications, but I’ll share three of the most important ones here:

1.  Where are the other 44%?  Asleep at the wheel?  Did they not experience an increase too?  Or is this minority savvy enough to keep their costs per click and their overall keyword advertising low?  The fact of the matter is that two advertisers in the same business, with similar websites could be paying very different costs per click on the same keyword.

Company A manages their search marketing campaign in-house.  They login to their AdWords account once a week and take a look at where their budget is, how many keywords they’re bidding on and which keywords they’re spending the most on.  Company A feels this is adequate and assumes that their competition is doing the same.  Their cost per click stays the same, or increases based on their passive approach to search engine marketing.

Company B knows they need help, so they hire a consultant, a company or have their “IT guy” manage their campaign for them.  They don’t have time to login once a week, so they trust that this is being done for them.  The consultant, company or IT guy does login to the account and adjusts it regularly.  They even report to Company B about how many keywords they’re bidding on and keeps them updated on what their monthly spend is.  As long as this spend doesn’t go up, Company B is happy.  The spend stays the same, but the cost per click on their chosen keywords remains high.  The reason is there is no incentive for the cost per click to go down.

Company C hires a passionate, knowledgeable and very savvy company called, Cyentist.  After an in-depth and exhaustive discovery session, Cyentist is equipped with essential brand-level details and nuances that separate Company C from its competitors.  They also distilled the most important services, products and information that the company offers its market.

From here, Cyentist conducts thorough and complete keyword research, always using the latest professional industry tools.  They find out where the prime advertising opportunities exist and compile a database of keywords on which to bid on behalf of Company C.  Most of the money spent on clicks is saved at the initial bid.

Company C’s campaign is built and goes live.  Cyentist then monitors and measures key campaign ROI metrics daily and aggregates this data into a custom monthly report for Company C.  This monitoring allows for mid-course correction in the strategy and approach as new data is gained and learned from.

Not surprisingly, the investment Company C makes in Cyentist’s services has a dramatically higher ROI than the strategies of Companies A and B, combined.

2.  Your competition gets it.  Even if they are doing it wrong, people who compete against you in the marketplace are now showing up where you’re trying to attract new business.  Your clients and customers have more choices now than ever before.  The cost you pay for a click and for an overall keyword is going up because demand has gone up for the same keywords you bid on.  Essentially, you’re paying for your competitors’ advertisements to show up right next to yours.  You’re welcome.

The question is what are you going to do about it?  You can do the same thing, for what will inevitably deliver ever-diminishing results or you can begin to change your approach.  Those lone rangers out there who never hired a consultant and did it themselves may want to take advantage of a free consultation with Cyentist.

3.  You don’t have to pay more for your keywords; you can find new ones.  Think you’ve found them all?  It is time to start thinking about your own search habits and search nature.

Do you search using the words that come up in Google’s suggestion tools, or do you search using a different method?  Is your method exclusive to you, or could there be hundreds or thousands of others who search this way too?

Then again, maybe you haven’t found all of the popular keywords associated with your brand, products, services or information yet.  Maybe you need to change your bid, the schedule on which your ads appear in search results, maybe your ads need to be rewritten.  Maybe, maybe, maybe!  If you don’t know, you need to find out.  Winning consistently, even in the face of change will be what sets you apart from your competitors more than anything else.  If you feel you’re overspending for the results you’re getting with search marketing, call us today and let us show you how to create real results in a changing advertising landscape.