SPONSORED SUPPLEMENT: Search Marketers Broaden their Horizon

Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide

As retailers closed the book on the 2006 holiday shopping season, they recognized the need to think more strategically about search engine marketing. Creating successful paid and organic search campaigns is no longer as simple as buying the most popular keywords around a specific product and creating a multitude of landing pages to ensure inclusion among the Top 10 organic search results.

Retailers have long deployed such tactics for increasing the effectiveness of paid search as purchasing keywords that score higher conversion rates and creating URLs for web pages that are more easily recognized by search engine spiders. The latter makes it easier for shoppers typing in a highly specific search string to land on the desired page. But in today`s market, retailers also need to think more deeply about leveraging blogs, podcasts, online advertisements, press releases and promotional trailers attached to videos to boost organic search rankings.

"It`s important for retailers to adopt a 360-degree view of their search marketing strategy because the ways consumers communicate with each other and businesses communicate with audiences online is rapidly changing," says Lisa Wehr, president of search engine marketing firm OneUpWeb. "Retailers simply can`t afford to have tunnel vision when it comes to search engine marketing."

Among the most profound changes in the ways consumers and businesses communicate online is the exploding use of podcasts, blogs, videos, and other social networking sites that contain promotional content and consumer reviews of a product or of a specific retailer. Increasingly, shoppers are turning to these pages to aid in the purchasing decision.

As a result of obtaining links from these pages to the retailer`s main web site, these pages can actually help influence a retailer`s organic search ranking. "Social networking sites and blogs are viewed by consumers as endorsement vehicles, which means they can influence consumer purchasing behavior," says Robert Murray, president of search engine marketing firm iProspect. "But if these pages are not on the retailer`s radar when creating their search marketing strategy, they can`t be used to also help influence their natural search rankings."

What makes incorporating these alternative information pages into the search strategy so important is that while they are a step below mainstream consumer search habits--for the time being--they generate top rankings and click-through rates because there are fewer such search terms linking retailers to these pages, and subsequently less competition to be recognized by search engine spiders.

A mass market with niches

Looking for opportunities outside of the usual marketing paths that retailers have followed is crucial to success today as the Internet becomes both a mass medium and a niche vehicle. "Search today is more niche oriented, so retailers need to think more about how to optimize the tail--or the back-end--of their search strategy," explains Gary Smith, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for YourAmigo, provider of organic search engine optimization applications. "If retailers optimize the whole of their business when it comes to search, they can increase business by as much as 25% to 50%."

The so-called head and tail of the search marketing strategy is essentially creating search strategies to deliver product and service information during the presale decision process and post-sale customer care.

On the presale side, retailers can post promotional videos on YouTube.com, run ads where their products appear on blog sites, or create personas on such sites as MySpace.com. Retailers can then use these pages to improve the quality of their organic search rankings. "These pages can be treated as independent destinations to drive sales and traffic to the store or as a way to build organic search results through additional content," explains Murray of iProspect.

Other options include creating on a retailer`s own site podcasts or web videos that promote a specific product or present user opinions about the product, or both, Wehr says. "Podcasts can be promoted in paid and natural search," she says.

Post-sale customer care

Retailers also can use pages within social networking sites to enhance the quality of post-sale customer care. Frequently after a purchase, shoppers will hunt online for tips about product care or how to troubleshoot problems encountered when using the item. That`s where retailers have the opportunity to continue to influence consumers.

"Social networking sites can influence the customer`s perception of the shopping experience post sale, based on customer service information," says Christopher Wallace, vice president of strategy for iCrossing, a search marketing agency. "Retailers willing to emphasize customer satisfaction as part of their search strategy are more apt to win customer loyalty."

By incorporating content from social networking efforts into their search marketing strategies, retailers can dramatically improve their organic search rankings by increasing the amount of content about them or products that can be crawled by search engine spiders.

This additional content can not only generate higher rankings in search results based on relevancy, but also help retailers dominate a results page by returning multiple listings around a search string.

"Social networking creates more content around a retailer`s site and content is the gateway to a successful natural search marketing strategy because it provides more information for search engines to latch on to about the retailer," explains Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor Corp., which provides e-commerce platform and search marketing services. "Blogs, which we are seeing more of, create an audience that wants to read that information."

The more information consumers get about a retailer in their search results the better the odds the retailer has of increasing its brand awareness.

That`s because the content within such areas as social networks or blogs drills deeper into the subject and presents the information on a more personal level, as opposed to information created by the retailer.

"Sometimes the information on these pages resonates more than if a retailer placed a banner ad or created more content pages on their site," says Dave Williams, chief strategist and co-founder of search marketing agency 360i LLC. "While these concepts may scare some retailers, this is the next evolution of search engine marketing, because it is where their audience is moving."

Quality, not quantity

Indeed, providing search results that drill into a subject can deliver a higher quality audience, even though it is smaller than what may be attracted through broader-based search terms. "The audience may be more finite, but as long as the quality of the audience is there, retailers will work to cultivate it," says Dave Hills, president and CEO of search engine LookSmart Ltd. "The more knowledgeable retailers get about search, the more efficiently they can manage their search strategies."

Still, retailers must remember that they have no control over third-party content appearing outside their site. Unlike customer reviews that appear on their site and can be edited to remove profane language, tirades and the like, third party sites often post unedited comments. That means negative commentary is there to be read or viewed by the consumer reading the post.

While no retailer likes bad publicity, running from it by excluding links to third party sites from a head-to-tail search marketing strategy can be a mistake. Instead, it is better for retailers to learn from such comments and reach out to the disgruntled party to correct the problem.

"There are always going to be negative reviews on third-party sites, so retailers need to be prepared for it and understand that it is better to address it than repress it," counsels Adam Lavelle, vice president of strategy for iCrossing. "Reaching out to unhappy customers to correct a negative experience can create an evangelist that has more influence as a positive voice than they did as a negative voice."

Not just for acquisitions

In other words, search marketing is a way for retailers to interact more effectively with shoppers throughout the lifecycle of the purchase process. By taking this approach, retailers encourage shoppers to repeat the search during future shopping trips. "Search is more than just an acquisition vehicle," adds Lavelle. "It is a behavioral tool that provides an engaging experience and cohesive message that shoppers can take away at any point in the pre-purchase and post-purchase process."

The move to include third-party content to boost organic search is just one aspect of creating a more strategically focused search marketing strategy.

Despite the rising cost of paid search, retailers have accepted the fact they cannot move completely away from paid search for the simple reason it remains highly effective.

"Shoppers that click on paid search terms specifically know what they are looking for, so the term is more relevant to them than the content," says ChannelAdvisor`s Wingo.

To help retailers figure out which keywords to purchase, ChannelAdvisor performs a profit-and-loss analysis of each keyword that is relevant to the retailer`s site and catalog. The company typically identifies five to 10 keywords per SKU to create good keyword density across the head and tail of the search marketing strategy.

"Some terms may be more specific, but they convert better and cost less, so they provide a better economic return," adds Wingo. "There is a cost target that needs to be kept in mind with paid search."

In the event a desired search word is not generating enough conversions, retailers need to consider expanding the number of words. Sometimes it may mean opening a thesaurus to identify similar but unused search words. "Too often retailers will become too comfortable with the keyword pattern they are purchasing," says LookSmart`s Hills. "Helping retailers determine the return on investment of a specific keyword can help them identify words they may not have previously considered."

More suggestions

As a search engine, LookSmart monitors the click-through rate of keywords purchased by advertisers and compares it to the cost per click. "We can point out if a keyword is a clunker," adds Hills. "If there are more effective keyword patterns to be used, we suggest them, especially if they are not being bought."

In many cases relevant keywords that are not bought tend to be part of the tail end of a retailer`s search marketing strategy, which means the keywords are more specific. Although entered less frequently by shoppers in search strings, they are still of value for two primary reasons. First, retailers only pay per click, which means the cost of the word is usually less than a keyword that ranks among the top 10 keywords for a particular search.

Second, purchasing lesser used terms makes it more affordable to dominate a page of results. Retailers purchasing less popular keywords in addition to the most popular ones can afford to snare a larger portion of the paid search term results column.

"Using paid search to fill in the gaps for organic search can help retailers dominate a results page," explains iProspect`s Murray. "We help retailers find the sweet spots in their search marketing strategy."

One of the ways iProspect achieves this result is to test keyword performance by the time of day. Just as retailers attract shoppers that exhibit different types of behavior patterns throughout the day, so do search engines. In this case, shoppers exhibiting specific behavior patterns will respond to different marketing tactics.

Test, test, test

"We test keywords by the time of day and position for that time to determine when and in what position it is the most effective," says Murray. "This helps retailers compete in a more competitive keyword bidding environment and take advantage of search engine users` behavior."

Dominating a page using paid and organic search allows retailers to more effectively reach shoppers by presenting a combination of organic keywords that provide detailed content and paid keywords that are promotionally oriented. By achieving this balance, retailers can persuade shoppers that favor paid or organic search to migrate to the other on occasion.

"We have seen a 20% overlap between shoppers that use paid search and organic search," says 360i`s Williams. "In some cases, a shopper may start the search process by clicking on one type of keyword and then finish it by clicking on the other. Having a strong presence between paid and organic search prevents shoppers from becoming siloed when it comes to interacting with keywords."

Sometimes that means thinking about applying organic search techniques to paid search strategies. "It can be worthwhile to promote a press release using paid search," says OneUpWeb`s Wehr. "Paid search is a great way to link a press release about a relevant or popular topic or link a quote from the retailer that is pertinent to the search string to support other media placement within the search strategy. By optimizing paid search in such a manner, it helps increase the relevancy of organic search results."

When attempting to strike the balance between paid and organic search, Williams stresses that retailers must remember paid search delivers quick results, while organic search delivers long-term results. "The balance between them is struck based on the goals of the retailers and what they have learned about keyword selection in the past," says Williams.

Boosting the pages

But not every retailer has the budget to purchase enough keywords to dominate a results page. In these instances, retailers need to think more about raising the profile of the URL for all pages within their sites to boost the rank and number of organic search results. "A lot of times a retailer may not have search terms shoppers use to search for them embedded in the URL of the related page," says YourAmigo`s Smith.

In these instances retailers need to alter their URL to include the identified keywords or create new pages containing the necessary keywords. YourAmigo`s SpiderLinker application scans the URL for each page on a retailer`s site to identify keywords that can be added to the page`s title, in addition to creating more search engine friendly pages.

"We can create spider friendly links to web pages, create entirely new pages with search engine-friendly URLs or add keyword combinations to existing pages so they can be better seen by the search engine. We create bridges that smooth out the bumps on the path to search engine optimization," says Smith.

Smoothing out the bumps in any search marketing strategy is critical, especially since many retailers became disenchanted with paid search after the 2005 holiday shopping season due to rising keyword prices.

The pullback was brief, however, as retailers came to understand they could offset the inefficiencies resulting from higher keyword prices by crafting broader-based search marketing strategies. "Advertisers did pull back from paid search a bit in late 2005 due to the cost, but now they see the value is still there if they take a more sophisticated approach to buying keywords more deeply," says LookSmart`s Hills. "As long as the quality of audience is there, retailers will spend more deeply."

Still, Hills cautions that retailers do need to test keywords before plunging into a purchasing strategy. Without testing in advance of purchasing, retailers will not be able identify keywords that enable shoppers to drill down past the head of their search marketing strategy. "It`s important to first understand the ROI of each keyword prior to purchasing," he adds.

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Link keywords and shoppers` needs

As retailers advance their search marketing strategies, one of the points they need to keep in mind is they must select keywords and create pages with search terms that can lead to relevant content outside their site.

"Each keyword serves a purpose in the pre-purchase and post purchase environment," says iCrossing`s Wallace. "To get the most out of a keyword, retailers need to understand the linkage between how keywords support customer research, trigger purchasing decisions and provide customer support."

Other keywords are better suited to more subtle tasks, such as building brand awareness. Seasonal keywords can offer some of the strongest branding opportunities. By purchasing seasonal keywords well in advance of the specific selling season, retailers can put their brand out in front of early bird shoppers and build brand awareness and possibly snag some early buyers.

"Retailers need to remember that some keywords are more conversion oriented and some are more conducive to branding opportunities," says 360i`s Williams.

One piece of the puzzle

Nor should retailers forget that keyword buys are but one piece of the puzzle. Links to podcasts, blogs and other social networking pages need to be incorporated into their search marketing strategy, as well as delivery of search results to wireless, handheld mobile devices. While relatively new, delivering search results to mobile devices through XML feeds can prove helpful for shoppers on the run who want the address of and directions to the nearest store. IProspect already provides mobile search feeds for a hospitality client.

"The aim of search marketing is to create an integrated strategy that serves all the needs of retailer`s business, not just one element," says iProspect`s Murray.

An integrated strategy means developing search strings for pages embedded more deeply in the web site that are likely to be found using specific and lengthy search strings.

"The key to successful search engine marketing is optimizing the head and tail of the strategy," says YourAmigo`s Smith. "If retailers are not looking at their search strategy in this way, they are missing out on a lot of business. They might as well be displaying only half their inventory on their site."

Such innovations are certain to reinvigorate retailers when it comes to crafting their search engine marketing strategies. By creating a strategy that applies more sophisticated concepts to search marketing, retailers can develop low-cost but highly effective ways to reach shoppers. As they become adept at doing so, they can create search strategies designed to achieve specific goals, such as increase sales, which in turn raises the level of the creativity behind the strategy, according to ChannelAdvisor`s Wingo.

"With so many sources of information search engines can link to, there is a lot of innovation left in search engine marketing," says Wingo.

Enrich the search results

These concepts include podcasts, blogs, third party sites and paid placements for press releases and other types of advertisements that can heighten brand awareness, make the purchasing decision easier, and improve post sale customer care.

"Keywords that link search results to podcasts and third party sites with related content can enrich the quality of the search results, and in turn help retailers get more out of their search marketing strategy," says OneUpWeb`s Wehr. "There are some huge opportunities in these areas that can easily be overlooked."

With retailers receiving the tools and knowledge of how to use them to communicate with shoppers in different ways and through third-party sites, the opportunities to broaden their horizons when crafting search marketing strategies has expanded as far as the eye can see.

Finding the right search engine--then the right budget mix

As if retailers didn`t have enough to consider when figuring out how to optimize their search engine marketing strategy, they must also determine how to allocate their search marketing budget. That means figuring out which search engines they want their listing to appear on and how to divide marketing dollars between paid and organic search to achieve their goals.

The former is becoming increasingly important as retailers must take into account the power of establishing a presence on search engines besides Google, Yahoo and MSN.com. While the big three dominate the search landscape, secondary search engines still deliver quality, although smaller, audiences and provide a more affordable way for retailers to syndicate their search listings.

"Developing a strong syndication network for search listings is part of developing a more sophisticated search marketing strategy by buying keywords that drill down deeper to deliver what shoppers are looking for," says Dave Hills, president and CEO of search engine LookSmart Ltd.

Choosing the right secondary search engine on which to establish a presence requires investigating the performance of the engine and the quality of the audience delivered. If the engine attracts shoppers that convert in fewer queries and that know precisely what they are searching for, targeting that engine can prove a valuable addition to a retailer`s search marketing strategy.

"It`s important to have a presence on all the major search engines, but retailers also need a selective presence on the next tier of search engines," says Dave Williams, chief strategist and co-founder of search marketing agency 360i LLC. "Google may dominate the space, but it will see more competition."

Intent on maintaining the market share gap it has opened on competitors, Google is diversifying its search marketing options. Google Base, for example, allows retailers to submit direct data feeds, as opposed to having their sites crawled. While this affords retailers a better opportunity to submit more targeted content that can boost their organic search rankings, the information is only applicable to Google Base.

"There are pros and cons to using a site such as Google Base and they need to be kept in mind," cautions Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor Corp., which provides e-commerce platform and marketing services to retailers. "One of the downsides can be lower consumer usage and potential consumer disconnects. In the early stages of a product like this, it is best to first thoroughly consider the pros and cons before jumping in."

The rule of thumb when determining whether to establish a presence on a search engine or a new service from Google or other leading search engines is to treat each search engine as its own line of business. "It`s best to look at whether each search engine can deliver the projected return on investment," explains Wingo. "Every search engine has its own economics."

Nevertheless, direct data feeds to search engines are gaining popularity according to Williams. "It`s another way to get strong content and product information into the search engine," he adds.

Another issue to consider when establishing a presence on a search engine is whether the engine`s platform is compatible with competing search engines. If so, retailers can immediately establish a presence on more than one search engine, thus sparing further optimization costs, according to Robert Murray, president of search marketing agency iProspect. "AOL is licensing Google`s algorithms, so retailers that get listed on Google are also set on AOL," explains Murray.

Watch those algorithms

Just as important as platform compatibility across search engines is whether a search engine has limits on the number of results that can be returned per URL. "Google and Yahoo never allow more than two listings per domain," adds Murray. "That needs to be kept in mind when creating a search marketing strategy."

Besides checking on the number of listings per URL, retailers are advised to determine how often search engines change the algorithms for their spiders. Getting caught off guard by such changes can be detrimental to a retailer`s search marketing strategy because it can mean the loss of visibility to a large portion of pages. The same thing can happen if a retailer makes changes to a page, such as adjusting the price or adding a product.

Manually checking each page to ensure visibility can be time consuming and take up to a year for a retail site with thousands of pages. A more effective solution is to be sure the search engine spiders will respond to a bridge link that is automatically put in place after changes to search engine algorithms or the retailer`s page that may hinder page visibility by altering the URL of the page. Such links ensure page visibility to the spider until the URLs within the page can be adjusted.

"Any change in the way the search engine gathers information or information is presented to the search engine is going to have an impact on the search strategy," says Gary Smith, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for YourAmigo, provider of organic search engine optimization applications. "The ability to adjust quickly to these changes is essential."

Finally, retailers need to look closely at the rates of click fraud for secondary search engines, especially when purchasing keywords, cautions Lisa Wehr, president of search engine marketing firm OneUpWeb.

"How well search engines police themselves to prevent click fraud is important, because retailers can`t really do it themselves," Wehr says. "The higher the click fraud, the lower the audience quality and the less worthwhile it is to have a presence on that search engine."

Create a strong brand

In addition to general search engines, retailers should examine comparison shopping sites and understand the differences among the sites and between comparison shopping sites and search engines. Wehr cautions retailers to closely examine the quality of the audience on comparison shopping sites when linking those sites into a search marketing strategy. "Comparison shopping sites are price driven, which means the retailer can become a commodity," warns Wehr. "Price is not always enough of a point of differentiation in search marketing."

Once retailers have decided which search engines they want to establish a presence on, they can determine how to allocate their budgets between paid and organic search. The starting point is to remember that organic search strategies also figure into the selection of paid search keywords.

Creating organic content aimed at brand building helps strengthen the appeal of paid search by making the brand more familiar to shoppers who start with organic search and then move to paid search. "Using organic search to create a strong brand influences click-through rates on paid search," says 360i`s Williams.

The inventory factor

Brand building through organic search can also be achieved by programming a landing page to display a marketing message once the shopper links to it through organic search results. "The ad that appears can be for a new product or service, even a press release that casts the retailer as market leader," says YourAmigo`s Smith.

In addition to myriad decisions on strategies, search marketing efforts must take inventory and page design into account. For instance, landing pages can be programmed to redirect shoppers to a page featuring a similar product if an item is out of stock. "The goal is to have an organic search strategy that is agile to ensure constant relevancy," adds Smith.

Regardless of the level of sophistication built into any organic search strategy, the payoff is less immediate than paid search. Retailers must not only identify keywords that will consistently generate high rankings, but also conversion rates to justify the cost of their campaigns. Maintaining a high conversion rate may require tweaking of landing pages and the creative copy used in the paid search ads.

"We will reconstruct a landing page if necessary so that it resonates better with the shopper and boosts the conversion rate on paid search ads," says iProspect`s Murray.

Successful organic search strategies can deliver click-through rates 6% to 10% higher than paid search, according to industry experts. Organic strategies that achieve that level of success guide customers through the research process and into the purchase decision.

"One way to look at organic search is as a funnel, where the information and landing pages start out generic, then move into branding and finally get into the specifics of the product," explains Christopher Wallace, vice president of strategy for iCrossing. "But it can take 90 days to see a good return on investment. That`s why retailers must be realistic about what kind of payoff they want."

Retailers that want to budget more for paid search can`t afford to dip their toe in the water by purchasing only the most popular keywords. With most paid search supported by online and offline advertising that drive consumers to conduct a search query, retailers must purchase more highly specific keywords to match lengthy search strings.

Once a retailer prompts a customer to conduct a search, the retailer can create the appropriate paid search strategy based on whether it expects the shopper to enter general or specific keywords.

"There is a lot of work that goes on by retailers using sophisticated customer management tools in their advertising to move shoppers into online search," says LookSmart`s Hill.

And this is just the start, search marketing practitioners say. If what retailers want is to be on the cutting edge of communicating with shoppers through search, then creating landing pages with links to podcasts and blogs that instruct shoppers how to access the desired information is the way to go.

"Optimizing natural search rankings is something every retailer knows they need to do, and quite frankly is old news," declares OneUpWeb`s Wehr. "What is more important to organic search is how new web technologies and marketing and media campaigns launched outside the web can influence natural search results."

Given the rapidly evolving sophistication of organic and paid search marketing and the growing role of secondary search engines, retailers will face some tough choices about how best to budget for their search marketing strategies. Finding the right mix won`t be easy, but for the retailers that do, the payoff will be big.