Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Website, Third Edition

Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Website, Third Edition

by Mike Moran, Bill Hunt
Released December 2014
Publisher(s): IBM Press
ISBN: 9780133039191

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Book description

The #1 Step-by-Step Guide to Search Marketing Success...Now Updated and Reorganized to Help You Drive Even More Value

For years, Search Engine Marketing, Inc. has been the definitive practical guide to driving value from search. Now, Mike Moran and Bill Hunt have completely rewritten their best-seller to present valuable new strategies, best practices, and lessons from experience.

Their revamped and reorganized Third Edition introduces a holistic approach that integrates organic and paid search, and complements them both with social media. This new approach can transform the way you think about search, plan it, and profit from it.

Moran and Hunt address every business, writing, and technical element of successful search engine marketing. Whatever your background, they help you fill your skills gaps and leverage the experience you already have.

You’ll learn how search engines and search marketing work today, and how to segment searchers based on their behavior, successfully anticipating what they’re looking for. You’ll walk through formulating your custom program: identifying goals, assessing where you stand, estimating costs, choosing strategy, and gaining buy-in. Next, you’ll focus on execution: identifying challenges, diagnosing and fixing problems, measuring performance, and continually improving your program. You’ll learn how to

  • Focus relentlessly on business value, not tactics

  • Overcome the obstacles that make search marketing so challenging

  • Get into your searcher’s mind, and discover how her behavior may change based on situation or device

  • Understand what happens technically when a user searches—and make the most of that knowledge

  • Create a focused program that can earn the support it will need to succeed

  • Clarify your goals and link them to specific measurements

  • Craft search terms and copy that attracts your best prospects and customers

  • Optimize content by getting writers and tech people working together

  • Address the critical challenges of quality in both paid and organic search

  • Avoid overly clever tricks that can destroy your effectiveness

  • Identify and resolve problems as soon as they emerge

  • Redesign day-to-day operating procedures to optimize search performance

    • Whether you’re a marketer, tech professional, product manager, or content specialist, this guide will help you define realistic goals, craft a best-practices program for achieving them, and implement it flawlessly.

    NEW COMPANION WEBSITE PACKED WITH TOOLS AND RESOURCES

    SEMincBook.com includes exclusive tools, deeper explorations of key search management techniques, and updates on emerging trends in the field

    mikemoran.com

    whunt.com

    SEMincBook.com

    Table of contents

    1. About This eBook
    2. Title Page
    3. Copyright Page
    4. Dedication Page
    5. Contents
    6. Preface
    7. Acknowledgments
      1. Acknowledgments from Mike
      2. Acknowledgments from Bill
    8. About the Authors
    9. Part I: Understand Search Marketing
      1. Chapter 1. How Search Marketing Works
        1. Why Search Marketing Is Important
          1. Searchers Are Highly Qualified Prospects
          2. Search Marketing Is Cost-Effective
          3. Search Marketing Is Big Business
        2. Why Search Marketing Is Difficult
          1. You Need Flexibility
          2. You Need Coordination
          3. You Need Name Recognition
          4. You Need Resources
          5. You Have Lots of Competition
        3. What Search Marketing Is
        4. How to Get Started in Search Marketing
          1. Getting Started with Organic Search
          2. Getting Started with Paid Search
        5. The Steps to Search Success
        6. Summary
      2. Chapter 2. How Searchers Work
        1. Visitor Behavior
          1. Buyer Behavior
          2. Other Visitor Behavior
        2. The Searcher’s Intent
          1. Navigational Searchers
          2. Informational Searchers
          3. Transactional Searchers
        3. The Searcher’s Device
        4. The Searcher’s Typing
        5. The Searcher’s Click
          1. How Searchers Look at Results
          2. Why Searchers Click Where They Do
          3. When Searchers Don’t Click Results
        6. The Searcher’s Follow-Through
          1. Customer Behavior and the Buyer’s Journey
          2. Search Marketing and the Buyer’s Journey
        7. How to Work the Searcher
          1. Don’t Pick Keywords That Are “Too Hot”
          2. Don’t Pick Keywords That Are “Too Cold”
          3. Pick Keywords That Are “Just Right”
        8. Summary
      3. Chapter 3. How Search Works
        1. How Search Engines Work
          1. Analyzing the Search Keyword
          2. Choosing Matches to the Keyword
          3. Ranking the Matches
          4. Displaying Search Results
          5. Finding Content for the Organic Index
          6. Analyzing the Content
          7. Spotting Words You Don’t Normally See
          8. Building the Organic Index
        2. How to Work the Search Engines
          1. Your Organic Search Writing Philosophy
          2. Your Paid Search Bidding Philosophy
          3. Your Content Quality Philosophy
        3. Summary
    10. Part II: Plan Your Search Marketing Program
      1. Chapter 4. Unlock the Business Value of Search
        1. Identify Your Website’s Goals
          1. Web Sales
          2. Offline Sales
          3. Leads
          4. Market Awareness
          5. Information and Entertainment
          6. Persuasion
        2. Measure Your Website’s Success
          1. Count Your Conversions
          2. Count Your Traffic
          3. Count Your Money
        3. Measure Your Search Marketing Success
          1. Target Your First Search Marketing Campaign
          2. Assess Your Current Situation
          3. See Whether Your Existing Landing Pages Are Indexed
          4. Calculate Your First Campaign’s Opportunity
        4. Summary
      2. Chapter 5. Create Your Search Marketing Program
        1. Define Your Search Marketing Strategy
          1. Choose the Scope of Your Search Marketing Program
          2. Divide the Search Marketing Work
          3. Choose Your Search Marketing Approach
          4. Project Your Search Marketing Costs
        2. Sell Your Search Marketing Proposal
          1. Assemble Your Search Marketing Proposal
          2. Sell Your Proposal to the Extended Search Team
          3. Sell Your Proposal to Executives
        3. Set Up Your Search Marketing Program
          1. Organize Paid Search
          2. Organize Organic Search
          3. Organize Local Search
        4. Summary
    11. Part III: Execute Your Search Marketing Program
      1. Chapter 6. Choose Your Target Market Segments
        1. Understand the Value of Targeting
          1. Building Brand Awareness
          2. Increasing Web Conversions
        2. Choose Your Primary Targets
          1. Brainstorm with Your Team
          2. Check Your Current Search Referrals
          3. Consult Your Site Search Facility
          4. Use Keyword Research Tools
          5. Check Out Your Competition
        3. Deepen Your Targeting
          1. Use Your Buyer’s Journey
          2. Decide a Match Type for Each Paid Search Keyword
          3. Localize Your Targets
        4. Organize Your Targets
          1. Understand the Need to Prioritize
          2. Choose Your Keyword Tiers
          3. Prioritize Keywords by Your Buyer’s Journey
          4. Structure Your Paid Search Keywords
        5. Optimize Your Keyword Models
          1. Segment Your Keywords by Categories
          2. Use Searcher Interests for Content Development
          3. Use Social Data to Improve Keywords
        6. Summary
      2. Chapter 7. Get Your Content Listed
        1. Get Your Pages Listed in Organic Search Indexes
          1. Assess How Many Pages Are Indexed
          2. Increase the Number of Indexed Pages
        2. Get Social Content Listed in Organic Search Indexes
          1. Get Your Blog Indexed
          2. Get Your Videos Indexed
          3. Getting Your Images Indexed
          4. Getting Your Social Network Content Indexed
        3. Get Your Merchandise Listed in Product Search Databases
          1. Feeding Your Data to Product Search Engines
          2. Making the Most of Product Feeds
        4. Summary
      3. Chapter 8. Optimize Your Content
        1. Choose Your Search Landing Pages
          1. How Not to Choose a Search Landing Page
          2. Landing Pages for Multiple Keywords
          3. When You Can’t Find the Right Landing Page
        2. Analyze Your Metrics
          1. Check Your Organic Search Rankings
          2. Measure Your Search Referrals
          3. Calculate Your Search Conversions
        3. Improve Your Content
          1. Improve Your Search Results
          2. Improve Your Landing Pages
        4. Summary
      4. Chapter 9. Prove Your Content’s Quality
        1. Organic Search Quality Factors
          1. Links as Quality Factors
          2. Social Media as Quality Factors
          3. Human Ratings as Quality Factors
        2. Paid Search Quality Factors
          1. Using Your Quality Score
          2. Understanding Product Search Quality
        3. Improve Quality with Co-Optimization
        4. Summary
      5. Chapter 10. Make Search Marketing Operational
        1. Why Is Operating a Search Program So Hard?
          1. Multiple Specialist Teams
          2. Multiple Product Sites
          3. Multiple Audiences
          4. Multiple Countries
          5. Multiple Technologies
        2. Set Up Your Search Center of Excellence
          1. Staff the Team
          2. Develop the Team’s Skills
          3. Establish Search Marketing Best Practices
        3. Monitor Your Search Metrics
          1. Assess Your Site’s Content
          2. Check Your Search Rankings
          3. Monitor Search Referrals
          4. Calculate Search Conversions
          5. Review Your Measurements with Others
        4. Monitor Your Search Health
          1. Your Organic Page Inclusion
          2. Site-Wide Organic Search Problems
          3. Your Paid Search Program
        5. Summary
    12. The Companion Website
    13. Glossary
    14. Index
    15. Code Snippets

    Product information

    • Title: Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Website, Third Edition
    • Author(s): Mike Moran, Bill Hunt
    • Release date: December 2014
    • Publisher(s): IBM Press
    • ISBN: 9780133039191