• SEM keyword research – Create keyword lists through for your website Google’s keyword tools.
• Optimize SEO META tags, page title, description, keywords, robots – For organic search engine optimization, ensure your site to have the right SEO basics, understand Google’s and Bing’s search algorithms, and monitor through Google Webmaster Tools.
• PPC optimization tips – For paid search marketing, understand how you should optimize PPC campaigns for Google Adwords, Bing Adcenter and Baidu Phoenix Nest (for Chinese market). Use sophisticated SEM systems (e.g. Kenshoo Search, Efficient Frontier and/or Marin Software) to automate PPC campaign management and bidding.
• Web analytics – You may be using Google Analytics to monitor and analyze search engine traffic, and to track social media (Google+, Twitter Tweets, Facebook Likes) performance.

Search Engine Optimization Role

SEOMoz has this Venn diagram: The SEO role stands at the center of technologist, statistician and marketer, and needs to possess partial skills of an analytics consultant, a PPC specialist and a social media marketer.

The gurus in the roles of SEO, PPC, and web analytics:

• SEO roles: Stephen Noton is a SEO guru and Wheeler Derrick an experienced SEO architect both are extremely experienced in search engine optimization for large websites.
• PPC role: Brad Geddes is one of the leading PPC experts with his book Advanced Google Adwords.
• Web analytics role: Avinash Kaushik tells you what a web analyst should do.

Product Management Role

While SEO and PPC have taken care of search engine traffic acquisition, creating/managing a B2C site falls onto the operations of product management / product development. Creating a website involves improving the site’s:

• Conversion rate
• User friendliness and user engagement

Mind the Product provides the definition and the Venn diagram of a product manager.

In the modern days, a product manager lies in the middle of user experience design (UX), technology and business. This SlideShare document shows you 7 things that a product manager must know. Product managers must understand technology and user experience design:

• Smashing Magazine explains what user experience design is and offers tools/resources to UX.
• Go through some of the books in the list of the best software engineering books ever.

2011′s SEO and Web Analytics Reviews by Search Engine Watch

Search Engine Watch offers this Biggest Search Events of 2011:

• Google’s Panda update
• SSL search
• Social signals and integration
• Yahoo Site Explorer shuts down
• Google’s freshness algorithm update
• Microsoft-Yahoo Search Alliance

Search Engine Watch has this Web Analytics Year in Review 2011:

• Online and offline data integration
• Social media analytics
• Omniture Site Catalyst launches
• Super “cookies”
• Mobile analytics
• Google Analytics Real-time
• Google encrypts search data
• Google chrome passes Mozillia Firefox

Web/Social Analytics Metrics for 2012 by Avinash Kaushik

Avinash Kaushik explains the best KPI metrics for small, medium and large websites. Different sets of web analytics metrics should be measured by small, medium, and large-sized websites.

Web Metrics for Small-sized Business Websites:

• Acquisition: Cost per acquisition
• Behavior: Bounce rate, checkout abandonment rate
• Outcomes: Macro conversion rate

Web Metrics for Medium-sized Business Websites:

• Acquisition: Cost per acquisition, click-through rate
• Behavior: Bounce rate, checkout abandonment rate, page depth, loyalty (count of visits)
• Outcomes: Macro conversion rate, micro conversion rate, per visit goal value

Web Metrics for Large-sized Business Websites:

• Acquisition: Cost per acquisition, click-through rate, % new visits
• Behavior: Bounce rate, checkout abandonment rate, page depth, loyalty (count of visits), events/visit
• Outcomes: Macro conversion rate, micro conversion rate, per visit goal value, days to conversion (or time lags for content sites), assisted conversions

Avinash Kaushik defines the best social media metrics with conversation, amplification, applause, and economic value. Know what social metrics to measure and how to measure the social metrics.

Conversation Rate:

• Conversation Rate = Number of Audience Comments (or Replies) Per Post

Amplification Rate:

• Twitter: Amplification = Number of Retweets Per Tweet
• Facebook: Amplification = Number of Shares Per Post
• Blogs/YouTube: Number of Share Clicks Per Post (or Video)

Applause Rate:

• Twitter: Applause Rate = Number of Favorite Clicks Per Post
• Facebook: Applause Rate = Number of Likes Per Post
• Google+: Applause Rate = Number of +1s Per Post
• Blogs/YouTube: Applause Rate = Number of +1s and Likes Per Post (or video)

Economic Value:

• Economic Value = Sum of Short and Long Term Revenue and Cost Savings

Japan, Korea and China Reviews by Clickz Asia

Clickz Asia has this SEO Matures in North Asia, Key Trends for 2012 which refers to social signals, mobile app market and mobile SEO in Japan and Korea.

• Social signals in SEO have resulted in Facebook pages to rank in Google Japan for competitive terms and Korea’s Naver blog platform (Cafe) having pages appeared in the main search listing on Naver’s top pages.
• The rise in adoption of smartphones in Japan and Korea will lead to an increased focus on mobile SEO as Japan has 14 million smartphone population (or 11%) and Korea has over 20 million smartphone population (or 40%). The mobile app market is the second most popular activity on mobile after search.
• SEO will be the increased focus on optimizing for local search. In Japan, search queries on Google Places in 2011 has more than doubled as people have increased their on-the-go search. With Korea’s Naver, the search query volume of Naver Map, the premier map and local search platform has also doubled in 2011, coinciding with the surge in mobile usage in Korea.

A Starter’s Guide to Search in Korea briefly explains the landscape of search engines in Korea:

• Naver vs Daum – Korea’s 2 largest search engines are dominating search market share.
• SEM in Korea – SEM models in Korea include cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-time (CPT).

Chinese search engine Baidu is definitely on the way to:

• Build a Chinese Internet empire.
• Shift China’s online travel search by acquiring travel search engine Qunar.com.

2012′s SEM Predictions by Business2Community

Business2Community offers 2012′s Search Engine Marketing Predictions:

• PPC advertising will become more interactive and engaging as non-search options increase viability, and will become bigger in Youtube and social media.
• Websites will shift marketing budgets to directly converting leads into sales (from only generating leads) when more websites are using conversion tools and SEM automation systems to automate their conversion optimization process.
• Social’s integration into search engines continues to increase as social signals and sharing will have an even greater impact on search engine rankings. Companies will focus increasingly on Social Media Analytics, as the importance of measuring the ROI on social media campaigns continues to increase.

2011′s SEM and Analytics Events by Gordon Choi’s Blog

Gordon Choi’s Blog mentioned year 2011′s events related to search engines, web analytics and social networks.

Search Engine Optimization:

• Top 10 Google Search Algorithm Changes in 500 Updates
• Google vs Bing Search Algorithms
• Content Farm Spams, Google Search Algorithm Update
• Baidu, Bing, Chinese Travel Search Engine Qunar.com on Baidu Search Results
• Yahoo Site Explorer Shuts Down, Replaced by Bing Webmaster Tools

Search Engine Marketing and Tools:

• Google Keyword Tool Box
• Google SEM Tools 2011 Update
• PPC Optimization Tips

Web Analytics, SEO Analytics, Social Analytics:

• New Google Analytics, Dashboard, Real-time, Social Media, Site Speed, Custom Reports
• Google Analytics Social Reports, Track Social for Google +1, Facebook Likes, Twitter Tweets
• Blekko SEO Reports

Google+ / Social Networks:

• Google Plus Social Network, New Google Web Search Interface
• Quora Site, Questions, Answers on www.Quora.com
• Sina Weibo Chinese Microblog, t.Sina.com.cn, Weibo.com

Search Engine Conferences:

• SES Conference Shanghai 2011
• Google Creative Sandbox Shanghai

Introduction to Clickz.Asia

Clickz Asia is the APAC region version of Clickz.com that focuses in the China, Hong Kong, South East Asia, Japan, Australia, Korea, Singapore, Macau, and Taiwan markets.

Clickz Asia offers topics on:

• News
• Search – SEM, SEO
• Email
• Analytics
• Media – Media Planning & Buying, Emerging Marketing, Publishing
• Marketing Strategy – Trends, Integrated Marketing, Ecommerce, Downloads
• Social Media
• Mobile
• Stats – Tools

The blog posts on Clickz Asia are all original and written by industry experts.

Learn how to create successful Internet marketing campaigns. Focusing on Asian markets, ClickZ.asia has expert advice about online marketing, email, brand and interactive marketing, and search engine marketing. Read the latest Internet advertising news, e-commerce market research, Internet statistics and more.

Clickz.Asia My Profile and My Blog Posts

My profile:

• Gordon Choi’s profile on Clickz Asia

In 2011, what I have posted on Clickz Asia:

• SEM Tools for Brand Marketers Targeting China: Search engine marketing tools that are required to run trend research, keyword research, and process automation.
• SEO Analytics for Chinese Online Marketers: SEO analytics tools that are required to monitor organic search engine keyword ranking and bot behaviour, and identify SEO/techincal issues for websites.
• Baidu: Building a Chinese Internet Empire: How Chinese search engine Baidu is extending reach in many verticals besides search within China’s Internet world.
• In-House SEM: 5 Factors to Consider: A comprehensive evaluation for website owners to consider when they should stop outsourcing and bring PPC in-house.
• Outsourcing SEO to Search Agencies or Doing SEO From In-House: Four major deciding factors for outsourcing SEO to search agencies: understanding to your specific industry, connecting the traffic data and purchase data, authority to make changes to your website, and ability to deal with historical issues.
• Is Baidu Changing Chinese Travel Search in China – Chinese search engine Baidu invests into the online travel industry in China by acquiring vertical travel search engine Qunar.com.
• Social Media Opportunities in China – The blocking of popular Western social networking sites, microblogging platforms, and user-generated content sharing sites has helped local social networking sites to grow faster in China.

In 2012, what I have posted on Clickz Asia:

• The Importance of Data Lifecycles for Chinese Websites – Google collects web data from all over the Internet and then shares the web data back to webmasters and advertisers through Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, etc.

• Wordstream Keyword Research Suite
• Wordstream for PPC
• Adwords Performance Grader

Wordstream Keyword Research Suite

Wordstream Keyword Research Suite is a collection of SEM keyword research tools (for SEO and PPC), based on a US keyword database with 1 trillion unique search queries.

Keyword tools that are included in Wordstream Keyword Research Suite:

• Free keyword tool: Enter a core keyword and the free keyword tool will return keyword suggestions. Long-tail keywords as core keywords will also work.
• Free keyword niche finder: Enter a keyword of a generic topic and the free keyword niche finder will suggest niche opportunities.
• Free keyword grouper: Import a list of up to 1,000 keywords and free keyword grouper will re-arrange your keyword list into new organized keyword lists with manageable and actionable ad group structures.
• Free negative keyword tool: Enter a keyword and the free negative keyword tool returns a list of keywords that are not relevant to your campaigns. Add the irrelevant keywords to your negative list in Google Adwords campaigns or ad groups to avoid wasteful PPC spending.

Wordstream for PPC

Wordstream for PPC allows you to discover, analyze, group and organize large quantity of keywords and build highly optimized and cost effective PPC campaigns more effectively.

• Keyword discovery: Build PPC keyword database through continuous keyword research.
• Keyword analysis: Identify the most converted and most profitable keywords and set up negative keywords that are not relevant to your campaigns.
• Keyword grouping and organization: Segment your keyword list into highly relevant/themed ad groups base on relevance.
• Keyword Action: Prioritize actions by editing PPC text ads and optimize landing pages based on the most profitable keywords and the highly-themed keyword groups.
• Savings Alerts: Get alerts for the top 10 actions you can take immediately to reduce costs and improve ROI for your PPC campaigns.

For Adwords management:

• Campaign Builder is a 5-step process for creating a new AdWords campaign from scratch.
• Ad Group Builder is a keyword opportunity finder that suggests profitable new keyword niches to target.

Adwords Performance Grader

AdWords Performance Grader is a free tool for you to compare your Google Adwords campaign performance against other Adwords advertisers with similar spending based on including:

• Google Adwords Quality Score
• Spending
• Ranking (Review Google Adwords search ad auction system for how Adwords ad ranking works)
• Impression

AdWords Performance Grader gives you reports on 8 areas:

• Wasted spending
• Google Adwords Quality Score
• Clickthrough rate (CTR)
• Account activity
• Long tail keyword optimization
• Ad text optimization
• Landing page optimization
• PPC best practices (Review Google Adwords PPC optimization tips and PPC optimization tips)

SEM Tools, Keyword Tools

A list of the best keyword research/suggestion tools and search engine marketing tools:

• SEM keyword tools
• Bing keyword tool
• Google keyword tool box
• Google SEM tools

Chinese keyword research/suggestion tools for search engine marketing in China:

• Chinese keyword research tools
• Baidu keyword research tools

To understand SEO terms and PPC metrics, review:

• SEO Glossary
• PPC Metrics

One of the panel speeches at SES Shanghai:

“Simultaneous translation box” at one of SES’s conference rooms:

SES Workshops

SES also offers 3 workshop sessions (one half-day workshop session and two morning workshop sessions) that were conducted by search/social industry experts:

Eddie Choi, SES advisory board and Frontiers Digital managing director:

• Social marketing analytics – Applying key learnings and technologies from the US market to China – Now it’s the time to include social media analytics in your web analytics strategies

Eden Lau, Brandtology co-Founder and Managing Director of North Asia:

• Social and mobile marketing metrics and trends to for successful consumer engagement

Aaron Kahlow, Online Marketing Summit chairman and founder:

• Search and social media – A global perspective on what drives results for APAC / US marketers and how it applies to all markets

Upcoming SES Conferences

Upcoming SES conferences that will be held in other locations of the world in 2011:

• SES Toronto: 13-15 June, 2011
• SES San Francisco: 15-19 August, 2011
• SES Hong Kong: 20-21 September, 2011
• SES Chicago: 14-18 November, 2011

History of Search Engine Strategies (SES)

Search Engine Strategies was founded by Danny Sullivan, founder of Search Engine Watch:

• SES has been a conference series focused mainly on SEO and PPC, but also web analytics and social media marketing in recent years.
• The first SES conference was held in November 1999 in San Francisco, California.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Paid Search (PPC)
• Search Engines in APAC, China, Russia
• Web Analytics for SEO and PPC

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO factors for 2011 include:

• Internal Links and inbound links to your site
• Click through rates (CTR) of search queries to your site, and the impact of Google Instant to your Google SEO traffic
• Image mapping – Google uses images and alt tags on your site as ranking signals
• Click distribution / heatmap of your web pages – Google Analytics In-page Analytics / Site Overlay report
• Organic search and local search – Submit sites to Google, Yahoo, Bing local business search
• Optimize website’s page load time
• Social signals in Google’s, Yahoo’s and Bing’s search algorithm – Google can use social signals from Google Buzz and Twitter, and Bing can use social signals from Facebook
• Use information in Google Webmaster Tools and track your site’s search / web traffic in Google Analytics

Google made search algorithm changes to allow a domain to show up 3 or more times in the SERP by a single search query, if relevant enough.

• Google Search Algorithm Update, One Domain, 3 or More Results

Regarding web search spam:

• Web search spamming techniques including keyword stuffing no longer work.
• Google is to improve organic search quality by identifying “content farms” through document-level classifier that will make it difficult for spammy on-page content to rank high in Google’s search engine results pages (SERP).

SEO must be built into your website development when creating your site:

• Technologies
• Browser support
• SEO strategies
• Site architecture (linking structures) and site navigation (includes breadcrumb navigation)
• Content outline / development
• Site / page design
• URL structure
• Social media / multimedia plans

Master Baidu SEO and Yandex SEO when your websites target users in China and Russia which are both fast growing search markets.

Paid Search (PPC)

In 2011′s PPC Trends, expect:

• Growth of display advertising
• Actionable attribution
• The dawn of “No” keywords
• Maturity of Facebook PPC

Google still plays the major part in paid search (PPC) – With Google Adwords, start with structuring your account and then apply PPC optimization:

• How to structure an AdWords account
• Google Adwords PPC optimization tips

Inside Adwords listed the top 10 Google Adwords tool/feature innovations in 2010:

• Adwords Campaign Experiments
• Search Funnels
• Product Ads
• Adwords Call Metrics
• Click-to-call Phone Extensions
• Display Campaign Optimizer – Review Optimize Google Adwords content network ads for conversions
• Adwords Enhanced CPC
• Adwords Broad Match Modifier
• Adwords Automated Rules
• Adwords Remarketing

Baidu, China’s number 1 search engine, continued improving the paid search platform, Baidu Phoenix Nest, and tried to reduce the technology gap that has left Baidu PPC behind Adwords:

• Baidu Phoenix Nest PPC vs Google Adwords

In both Google Adwords and Bing Adcenter:

• Ads’ click through rate (CTR) should be lowered for achieving better ROI in some cases.

With Bing Adcenter’s optimization and transition from Yahoo Search Marketing, apply:

• Bing Adcenter PPC Optimization

Search Engines in APAC, China, Russia

APAC countries’ search marketing trends in 2011 include:

• In South Korea, Google dominates mobile search on smart phones – Smart phone users will reach 30 million by 2012.
• The demand of real-time search and social search in South Korea will increase.
• South Korea’s number 1 search engine Naver is to launch a paid search platform to replace Yahoo Search Marketing.
• Google has started to power Yahoo’s SEO / organic search results in Japan in December 2010.
• In APAC, Google dominates the English-speaking countries with search market share, but trails behind in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
• Alibaba, China’s B2B search engine, claims to have overtaken Google for ad sales revenues in China.
• The Chinese language will soon take over English to become the Internet’s most popular language.
• The search traffic of Yandex Russia search engine may grow 30-40% in 2011.

Web Analytics for SEO and PPC

In both SEO and PPC, you need to understand the keywords that are leading visitors to your site and eventually driving conversions for your site.

• Most web analytics tools’ tracking includes Google Analytics works on last click attribution by default – All conversions are allocated to the last source of a visit for that visitor.
• Kenshoo Search offers Path To Conversion for keyword conversion attribution – Path To Conversion tracks the entire click-conversion path (from the first click to the conversion) across multiple paid search engines. Conversion credit weights can be distributed to keywords in the click-conversion path based on your keyword conversion attribution setup.

Third party web analytics tools have been becoming compulsory for all sizes of websites. Major web analytics tools including:

• Omniture was acquired by Adobe in 2009.
• Coremetrics and Unica were acquired by IBM in 2010.

Web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik has this beginner’s guide to web analytics:

• Visit the website. Note objectives, customer experience, suckiness
• How good is the acquisition strategy? Traffic Sources Report
• How strongly do Visitors orbit the website? Visitor Loyalty & Recency
• What can I find that is broken and quickly fixable? Top Landing Pages
• What content makes us most money? $Index Value Metric
• How Sophisticated Is Their Search Strategy? Keyword Tag Clouds
• Are they making money or making noise? Goals & Goal Values
• Can the Marketing Budget be optimized? Campaign Conversions/Outcomes
• Are we helping the already convinced buyers? Funnel Visualization
• What are the unknown unknowns I am blind to? Analytics Intelligence

Kaushik also offers a list of analytics tools (including web analytics 2.0 tools) for SEO, PPC and mobile search:

• Google Analytics
• Yahoo Web Analytics
• Piwik.org
• Feedburner
• Percent Mobile
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Bing Webmaster Tools
• Mongoose Metrics
• ifbyphone
• Liveperson
• Google Website Optimizer
• Optimizely
• PostRank Analytics

Regarding mobile apps tracking, Apple allows third-party web analytics vendors to collect data including Motally, Flurry, Distimo, Localytics and Medialets to collect data from iPhone 4.0 operating system, the default OS for iPhones and iPads.

1. Top Rank Blog’s Big List

Over 400 internet marketing blogs with topics from SEO and PPC to blog marketing, marketing with social media and online public relations.

• View Top Rank Blog’s Big List

2. Search Engine Land’s Blogroll

Includes blogs in categories: search news, search commentary, search marketing advice, official Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, seo, paid search, web analytics and more.

• View Search Engine Land’s Blogroll

3. Alltop’s List of Paid Search Blogs

Live updates of the top paid search (PPC) blogs’ blog posts selected by Guy Kawasaki.

• View Alltop’s List of Paid Search Blogs

4. SEOmoz’s 50 Top Search Blogs

The top 50 search blogs that SEOmoz’s Randfish recommends reading.

• View SEOmoz’s 50 Top Search Blogs

5. Daily Blog Tip’s Top 25 SEO Blogs

Daily Blog Tips ranks the blogs according to Google Pagerank, Alexa rank, number of Bloglines subscribers and Technorati authority.

• View Daily Blog Tip’s Top 25 SEO Blogs

6. eBizMBA’s Top 15 SEO Websites

The 15 search engine optimization websites were ranked by inbound links, Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank, and US traffic data from Compete and Quantcast.

• View eBizMBA’s Top 15 SEO Websites

7. Larry Chase’s Best Search Engine Marketing Blogs

The list contains 14 search engine marketing blogs with brief introductions to each blogger.

• View Larry Chase’s Best Search Engine Marketing Blogs

8. Daily SEO Blog’s Top 20 SEO Blogs

The list was selected based on authority, regular updates and quality of articles.

• View Daily SEO Blog’s Top 20 SEO Blogs

9. Top 50 SEO & SEM Bloggers

Performing Blog ranked the top 50 SEO and SEM bloggers that you should follow.

• View Top 50 SEO & SEM Bloggers

10. Blogs.com’s 10 Best Search Engine Optimization Blogs

Danny Sullivan put up the list of 10 Best SEO Blogs on Blogs.com.

• View Blogs.com’s 10 Best Search Engine Optimization Blogs

11. Boost CTR’s List of Best PPC Blogs

The list of best pay-per-click blogs on Boost CTR blog:

• View Boost CTR’s List of Best PPC Blogs

12. PPC Blog’s Blogroll

Gordon Choi listed over 70 blogs with topics related to search engine marketing (pay-per-click), search engine optimization (SEO), web analytics, social media marketing and web usability.

• Gordon Choi Blog’s list of SEM Blogs

• Organic search (search engine optimization aka SEO)
• Paid search (pay-per-click aka PPC)

Organic Search Traffic (SEO)

Search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo and Bing) has potential to deliver high volume of free search engine traffic to your new web site. Before that happens, you will have to ensure:

• The search engine’s spiders (Google’s Googlebot, Yahoo’s Slurp and Bing’s MSNBot) can crawl your site’s web pages
• Your site is included in Google’s index, Yahoo’s index and Bing’ index
• Your web pages are ranked “high enough” on Google’s, Yahoo’s and Bing’s search results pages

The top 3 search engines usually are able to detect and crawl your site through any external backlinks pointing from another site to one of your web pages. Check the inclusion of your website in each search engine with the command (replace with your site’s domain name):

site:www.gordonchoi.com

If your new site is not included in the search engines’ indexes (after several months of launch), you can manually submit your site to the search engines:

• Submit site to Google
• Submit site to Yahoo
• Submit site to Bing

Ensure your site has the major factors implemented to rank well in Google’s, Yahoo’s and Bing’s search algorithms.

Paid Search Traffic (PPC)

The top 3 search engines can deliver high volume of paid search traffic to your web site through pay per click programs:

• Sign-up for Google’s Adwords
• Sign-up for Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM)
• Sign-up for Microsoft’s Adcenter

With PPC you are going to pay for every single one of your clicks that will lead to your website.

Before setting up your new PPC campaigns, run keyword research through the SEM keyword research tools to ensure you are going to be paying clicks for the keywords that are most relevant to your site.

On a regular basis, review your PPC campaign reports (for unusual and/or suspicious data) to spot PPC click fraud.

Increasing Sales via PPC

Generating sales (or increasing sales) via your e-Commerce website within short period of time is definitely possible. All you will need is to set aside a PPC budget, and to have suitable paid search advertising strategies and a PPC campaign management team.

The PPC campaign management team can either be an in-house PPC team or an experienced PPC agency. If you are to outsource the PPC project to an agency, you will have to consider the PPC business models that would be suitable for you.

Certainly, the more experienced the team the more revenues you are likely to get out of your campaigns. The responsibilities of the PPC team will be to set up overall paid search strategies, and continuously manage and optimize campaigns. The team will also be responsible for growing the campaigns by looking for other paid search related opportunities. This may include expanding into multiple PPC search engines.

Leveraging From Publisher Websites

The top-tier PPC search engines such as Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing have high quality and widely reached publisher networks and therefore can provide comprehensive contextual advertising channels. This means by opting-in to contextual advertising (aka content targeting or content match) networks of these search engine platforms, your PPC ads will reach hundreds of thousands of large-to-medium-to-small publisher websites.

Complementing SEO Strategies

Search engine optimization experts all know that organic search results are more difficult to predict and control than paid search results, due to the constant algorithmic updates of search engines, especially Google. It is never guaranteed even with high Google Pagerank, your important web pages and keywords will rank high in the search engine result pages (SERP). This may cause you to lose out on sales via important search engines.

However with PPC, it can be used to complement this disadvantage of SEO. Your PPC team can buy the inventory (keywords) that your SEO campaigns are not able to rank well. This strategy may cost you more on your PPC budgets, but for the short-run, you will not lose out on sales you should have made. Certainly, it is recommended that for the long-term benefit of your business, you will improve your SEO efforts on these missing inventories.

Improving Branding

Most large companies have well-known brands. It is through time that they have successful built their trusted and globally well-known brands. Medium and small companies can certainly follow the same path. Search engines are great channels for consumers to find what is available and what they want to buy. It has become common that companies are improving brand awareness by using the great reach of top-tier search engines.

Another channel to improve branding is via context targeting. As mentioned above, the top-tier search engines currently have this channel available to reach hundreds of thousands of publisher websites with different potential consumers.

As a decision maker of an online business, you will certainly want to utilize search as a tool. You will often need to make the decision to spend your limited marketing budgets whether on search engine optimization or paid search marketing. In fact, you should base your decisions on 3 factors: Urgency, budgets, and resources.

Urgency

Paid search marketing is an instant way to provide exposure opportunities and traffic to the online business of your clients. If your business is new, or you are required to boost sales instantly, PPC is the right option.

Search engine optimization is aging process. The SEO efforts will not be obvious or will not even show in the first several weeks or months. SEO is however good because once it is implemented into the infrastructure, it is always there. If your business does not require immediate exposure in the web and you are not ready to spend huge amount of marketing budgets right away, SEO is the appropriate option.

Budgets

As a decision maker of your company, you often want to set a marketing budget, whether it is for PPC or SEO. Sometimes it makes sense to listen to the experts as they are the ones who know exact how much is required to achieve your marketing goals.

Some may argue that it is risky to throw whatever amount of budgets requested. However the truth is that the decision makers are often the non-savvy people who are very likely to set projects under-budget or over-budget. Many times I have seen SEO and/or PPC related projects failed to accomplish their end-goals due to under-budget.

Some businesses with limited marketing budgets see the tracking of results being essential. As an advertising channel, PPC marketing has always been known to have its end results or ROI trackable. Also the ROI being tracked can be very accurate comparing to the end-results produced by any equivalent SEO campaigns.

One of the benefits on SEO is that once the work is performed on the infrastructure of the project, it would not make an immediate negative effect if the marketing budget is pulled. A PPC campaign has to cease as soon as its advertising budget is stopped.

Resources

Sometimes your decision should be made depending on what human resources you have on hand. If you already have an SEO expert in your business, it makes sense to utilize his best skills. The benefits are that you can throw him the budgets and resources required right away and he will figure out how to make a successful SEO campaign. Of course, if your expert is rather very experienced in PPC, it is better to start a paid search marketing campaign.

On top of that, you will want to listen to your expert whether he will need further support on human resources or technologies. PPC or SEO these days are not anymore an operation in which an in-house-single-person can handle efficiently and effectively. Both SEO and PPC are becoming far more complicated and competitive ever than before. I have previously made some great points on why PPC are becoming more competitive in 2007.

PPC (Pay Per Click or Paid Search)

You pay the PPC search engines who rank your web page by placing a text ad within their ‘sponsored link’ search results. Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing (Microsoft Bing Adcenter) are two very popular and effective paid search engines.

• PPC text ads mainly appear on the right hand side of the search engines.
• Search engines (Google and Yahoo) allow PPC ads to rank above organic search results, if your PPC ads meet certain requirements of the search engines.

The PPC advertising model is auction-based paid search in which the search engines power the search ad auction algorithms. PPC is a fast and effective method in ranking your web pages high in major search engines and their partner network sites within minutes.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is about optimizing to rank your websites high in organic or natural search results of the search engines (Google and Yahoo/Bing). You apply on-page and off-page techniques to your web pages (or optimize your web pages) in search engine optimization for your websites. With SEO you cannot guarantee your web pages rank in the top 10 positions of the search engines within a short time.

Search engine like Google prefers webmasters creating/optimizing websites for usability and improving websites’ user experience. Google has created the universal “standard” for SEO and offers SEO beginners guide to webmasters.