Beyond the basics: Market your keywords on search engines

You may be the best plumber in 10 states and have a fine looking Web site. But if no one can find it, it’s not bringing in any business. It’s like putting your business listing in the phone book—with no phone number.

That's where search engines come to the rescue. You may know a little about search engine optimization (SEO), but it's also important to understand how to take the next step and proactively "advertise" your site on the Web with keyword marketing. Let's start with a quick look at how SEO and keyword marketing work together.

First things first: Optimize your site

Authors and search marketing consultants Gradiva Couzin and Jennifer Grappone have been acquainting business owners with SEO and how to use it to maximize Web site effectiveness for several years. They are the authors of the book, "Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day."

As Couzin explains: "SEO is just a way of marketing your Web site that helps bring the right people to you." She outlines the primary goals of SEO as:

• Making sure your Web site includes the same words (keywords) your desired audience is typing into search engines.
• Making sure your Web site is built in a way that allows search engines to find it and read the text on every page.
• Building content on your Web site that other Web sites—especially those that speak to your target audience—will point links to.
• In some cases, using pay-per-click advertising, which can be an effective way to pay for search engine visibility and get targeted traffic to your site.

Search engines average many millions of searches a day and are the most common way Internet users find Web sites. We want our information now, and we’re probably going to pass on a Web site that is hard to use or offers no relevant information up front.

"Many small businesses, especially those new to the Web, miss out on some basic Web design conventions that can harm both usability and search engine friendliness. One fringe benefit of SEO is that it can help make your Web site much easier for your target audience to use and navigate," says Grappone.

"For most of the small businesses that we deal with, SEO is less about tricks or secrets or techie stuff and more about clarity of purpose," she added.

An important first step, she says, is for the business owner to sit down and ask some basic questions: "Who do you want to come to your site? What, specifically, do you want them to do when they get there? (That desired action is often referred to as a "conversion.") Then we look at the Web site—is there a separate page that speaks to each segment of the target audience? Is there a clear way to get from each of these pages to the conversion page?"

Both Couzin and Grappone strongly recommend that business owners do their own usability study to find out if their Web site works. Ask a friend to navigate it.

The next step: search engine marketing

Now that you understand how important SEO can be to your business and have some points to ponder from the experts, it's time to take the next step and proactively engage in some search engine marketing.

Microsoft Office Live Small Business makes this next step easy by providing keyword marketing assistance. Just to emphasize, keywords are those all-important words people—your prospective customers—type into search engines. If the words people are typing into search engines don’t match anything on your Web site, they won’t find you. If the words do match, there's a much better chance that they will visit your site.

AdManager, which comes with Office Live Small Business, offers a simple way to buy and manage relevant keywords on Microsoft Live Search, which is powered by MSN.com and Live. com.

With adManager, you can:

• Set up a monthly budget and maximum cost-per-click
• Create your own text-based keyword ads
• Target keyword placement for selected cities
• Track results and make changes if necessary to get a more cost-effective return
• See which search engines and keywords are sending you the most traffic
• Monitor unpaid search results

How it works

If you are totally new to the concept of keyword marketing, it might make sense to spend some time typing keywords relevant to your business into Live Search and studying the ads that appear. You'll be able to see what competitors are doing and get some ideas for how to write the text for your ad.

There are four basic steps involved in creating your keyword marketing campaign using adManager:

1. Set up a personal account.
2. Select the keywords or key phrases that you've used on your Web site during the SEO phase.
3. Create text-based search ads.
4. Determine the bid amount for each ad.

Your search listings are then distributed via Microsoft adCenter, the underlying service that delivers and places your keyword ads across the Live Search sites.

With adManager, you can optimize your search advertising budget and reduce the time you need to spend managing the process—without having to rely on expensive agencies or outside help.