What's your SEM Goal?

The first step in search marketing is deciding your goals.

Many marketers set out thinking that sales and high traffic go hand in hand which is the case with un-targeted traffic sources, but not so much with a PPC Advertising campaign. See a greater amount of traffic in PPC can create more sales but also goes down hill if you are not laser targeted.

If the product is health and wellness related for example using the search term, MLM Home Business, may get you more traffic to the site but convert fewer sales than, Health and Wellness MLM. In both cases the party is looking for a MLM business but in one they may have zero interest in the HW Industry and click off almost as fast as they land on the page. Always use multiple search terms but decide your goals.

If sales matter more then ending search engine rankings and you need to control your budget choose multiple search terms that are directly related to your site with no broad match terms that will send un-interested parties. Devote more cost per click to those terms to make sure you are on the first 1-2 pages of engines.

If the goal is better traffic rankings you will want to use a keyword research tool that will show you low bid, low competition terms loosely related to your industry but at more affordable bid prices allowing you to get more clicks for the same money. You will still get sales but make convert at 2% instead of 8% from a targeted campaign but the added traffic will result in greater traffic rankings. This works well to set up your own domain to rank high and get free search engine traffic in the future.

Regardless don't fall for the Google Trap.

Because of a reported 500 million users which is a large market share Google is by far not the only game in town for PPC Traffic. In fact they are not even the best game in town because 500 million users have drawn every corporation on the planet and over inflated PPC Bid prices. Google has less then half of the Internet users as does Facebook and yet both have 2 of the highest stakes in PPC industry Profits. Not from volume but in price to advertiser.

Fact is there are hundreds of smaller networks like our Socialtisers Advertising where a visitor that cost $3 on Google cost 5-25 cents. The targeting in most cases is just as good, the visitor just as likely to buy, and with the lesser allure of income from fraudulent clicks security is less burdensome. Even Google estimates that despite their controls over 1 million dollars a day is lost to click fraud. The bigger the dollar on the line the bigger the bulls eye, so seek new networks and go where Google, YPN, and Bing are not and find places that cater to small business like yours.

Andy Anderson
CEO Velocity Marketer
Owners Kooiii Social Media Search and Socialtisers Advertising