10 Bad Search Habits That Are Easy to Fall Into—And Easy to Dump

August 26, 2010

Who We Are

Clickable is a platform that makes online advertising simple, instant and profitable. Our purpose is to help businesses survive and thrive by simplifying online advertising success.

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Introduction

Hanny HindiClickable Search Marketing Guru

Max KalehoffClickable Search Marketing Guru & Vice President of Marketing

What is Search Engine Marketing?

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Introduction

Agenda

Our Goal Today: To outline some of the easiest search marketing bad habits to fall into, and provide strategies for dumping them.

1. Beginner: Be Specific, and Optimize for Revenue

2. Intermediate: Maximize Opportunities Across Search Networks

3. Advanced: Don’t Stop After You’ve Met Your Goals. Find New and Better Opportunities.

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Beginning Search Marketers

Be Specific, and Optimize for Revenue

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Bad Habit #1 (Beginners)

Position-One Lust1.Getting in the top

position is as tempting — and, usually, as bad a deal — as getting the top draft pick.

2.Users glance at the top three ads as a single cluster.

3.If your ads are in position one, you’re probably paying too much.

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Bad Habit #2 (Beginners)

Over-Reliance on “Broad Match”

1.On Google, “Broad” is the default keyword match type, but it’s probably not the one you want.

2.Broad Match keywords are a tool for collecting data, not a reliable way to generate conversions.

3.Make Phrase Match your default.

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Phrase Match

Bad Habit #3 (Beginners)

Optimizing for Click-Through Rates (CTR)

1.Clicks and Click-Through Rates (CTRs) are easy to track and easy to understand.

2.However, high CTRs don’t help if they aren’t related to high conversion rates.

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3. What you should optimize for is a metric further down the sales funnel: conversions.

Intermediate Search Marketers

Maximize Opportunities Across Search Networks

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Bad Habit #4 (Intermediate)

Using a Fixed Budget, Rather than Budgeting for Performance

1. Traditional marketing budgets are fixed line items.

2. However, if you’re optimizing for revenue, search marketing isn’t about fixed costs: it’s about a relationship between cost and revenue.

3. To get the most out of SEM, set a revenue goal and spend — and earn — as much as you can while meeting it.

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Bad Habit #5 (Intermediate)

“Agooglophobia”: Fear of the Non-Google

1. Google’s market share isn’t just high, it’s dominant: somewhere around 65%.

2. But, there are so many searches that a small market share, like Bing’s 10%, still represents billions of impressions.

3. After hitting your goals on Google, move on to Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.

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Bad Habit #6 (Intermediate)

Wasting Core Budget on “The Long Tail” (Before Maximizing Top Opportunities)

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1. Online volumes are so high that a small percentage is still significant.

2. Nonetheless, don’t focus on the long tail before optimizing higher-traffic keywords.

3. Focus on your most popular terms before spending time on more obscure terms.

Advanced Search Marketers

Don’t Stop After You’ve Met Your Goals

Find New and Better Opportunities

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Bad Habit #7 (Advanced)

Neglecting “The Long Tail” (After Maximizing Top Opportunities)

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1. Maximizing revenue on high-traffic keywords is no small task.

2. Nonetheless, your work is not finished when you’ve done so.

3. Keyword research should never stop: keep adding terms and optimizing them.

Bad Habit #8 (Advanced)

1. Demographic targets are great ways to filter your online audience.

2. They can also be used to maximize Quality Scores.

3. Optimize your campaigns with geo-targeting, day-parting and incremental.

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Not Using Targeting to Improve Quality Scores

Bad Habit #9 (Advanced)

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“ASEMophobia”: Fear of the Non-SEM

1. Until now, most new online marketing opportunities have been disappointments.

2. Social media (might) represent the first significant new revenue opportunity for online marketers.

3. Social Media Advertising and Search Engine Advertising are complimentary: take advantage of both.

Bad Habit #10 (Advanced)

Desire to “Set It and Forget It”

With a marketplace as dynamic as online marketing, the work is never done…

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Using Clickable Pro to Simplify SEM

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Using Clickable Pro to Simplify SEM

Clickable Pro is an online tool that makes search advertising Simple, Instant and Profitable.

• Manage all of your campaigns, across all search networks, in a single, intuitive interface.

• Take action based on recommendations generated by Clickable’s ActEngine™ (for everything from best practices to bids and budgets).

• Create white-label, customized reports.

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How to Sign Up for Clickable

Simply go to www.clickable.com/signup and try the product free for 15 days.

If you want more support getting started with search marketing, consider Clickable

Assist, our fully-managed solution:

www.clickable.com/assist

Or email us: editor@clickable.com

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How to Sign Up