Glossary Index
- Digital Competitors
- Inbound Links or Back links
- Invisible to search
- Keywords
- Paid Search | Pay per Click | Adwords
- Purchase Decision Research
- Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
- The "Long Tail"
Digital Competitors
There are two forms of digital competitors:
Same industry different place
The internet does not respect geography. Although there are businesses similar to yours off-line you never compete because they are too far away for clients to consider using them. On the internet they are all as close as your client's computer screen!
Different industry same keywords
On the internet you compete for keywords
Often you will stumble across accidents of language where the popular description for your offerings coincidentally and unfortunately matches a description in a completely unrelated business or industry.
e.g. You hire indoor plants so your keywords might be plant hire but that's also what the civil construction industry use to describe earth moving equipment hire !
Paid Search | Pay per Click
Pay per Click (PPC) or Paid search is a performance based internet advertising scheme.
Google dominates PPC with their AdWords product, a sophisticated pay per click environment providing internet advertising linked directly to Google's search engine results.
If a Google user types a search that matches keywords in an advertiser's campaign, their AdWords advertisement is displayed in the 'sponsored links' area to the right of to Google's natural or organic search results.
This allows advertisers to promote to an individual at the very time they are searching while they are performing purchase decision research.
Google search results showing Adwords 'sponsored links'
If the searcher clicks your ad, two things happen:
- The searcher is redirected your site.
- Google bills you for the click cost.
AdSense
Adwords advertisements can be optionally promoted through the 'Google Network' using Google's AdSense. AdSense allows webmasters to select Adwords ads as appropriate advertising content for their site giving your ads even more exposure.
What does a click cost ?
Good question ! It varies because click costs are linked to a bidding process, so the more competition for your keywords, the more expensive a click is likely to be. You are effectively bidding on the keyword(s).
The more you bid the more prominent your ad is displayed. Paying more does not make your ad convert better. Ultimately it is the searcher who decides if they are going to click on your ad.
The highest bidder's ad is displayed in the most prominent position on the results page, and so on down to the lowest successful bid. There are often unsuccessful bids - ads that didn't get displayed. Adwords automatically filters these out, eventually suspending them until they are upgraded - either by increasing their bid or modifying the related keyword.
The clicked ad is charged at 1 cent more than the ad ranked below your bid. Click costs range from cents through to many dollars depending on the market and region
An AdWords campaign consists of several through to numerous keywords, all relating to the targeted products or services and the associated ad.
Depending on products, keywords and the business model, it may be more effective to create multiple AdWords campaigns individually targeting different keyword groups.
Regionalisation
Google AdWords now provides region-based filtering of ads.
You can target an AdWords ad to one or more geographical regions - cities, states, countries or nations. If you only sell your widgets in Adelaide, South Australia you don't need to advertise to someone in California.
If however you are in a multi-national or global marketing adWords also allows you to easily reach that market.
Reporting
Adwords has extensive online, near real time reporting.
The ability to critically examine campaign metrics aids in prompt and accurate campaign tuning and the ability to closely track and manage a campaign over time.
Digital campaign reviewing is a real time process, where unsuccessful keywords, ad text for budgets can be analysed and addressed, unlike traditional marketing where reviews begin along the lines of '...now that we've spent the money let's see how good an investment it was...'
Accountability
A real value of PPC is the level of accountability for money spent.
Costs can be linked directly with the number of times the ad was shown (impressions) and clicks.
Succinct ideas provides Google Adwords campaign establishment and management services.
Click here to contact us to discuss your Google AdWords requirements.
Purchase Decision Research time
The period of time when a prospective purchaser is doing a market scan (in our case searching online) to select and ultimately purchase a product or service.
Invisible to search
Website content that despite the fact is published on the internet, will not be featured in search results.
Inbound Links or Back links
These are links from other websites to your website.Also known as 'back-links', inbound links from quality sites are the main contributor to improving Google PageRank.
The Long Tail
This visual model can be used to describe statistical distributions of amongst other things, search results.
The long tail illustrates that the majority of searches are distributed throughout a wide range of individual keywords (i.e. in the long tail of results) rather than the more obvious highly sort after keywords
For more information review the Wikipedia item on the Long Tail
Keywords
Keywords are:
- Search criteria used by prospective clients searching the internet for a product or service that you offer
- Predominate words in your website
Keywords are more typically two or three word phrases.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
We’ve all seen them, but maybe were not aware of the sales importance of these innocuous three lines of text so let’s look a little closer.
A SERP is typically formatted like this:
This is the SERP first line
This is the SERP’s second line which should contain a
compelling
reason to go to your website to read more about your services.
www.your website address
When your site is in a search result page, it is your SERP that will have greatest influence over the viewer.
If your SERP successfully influences the searcher and they click on your SERP you get the opportunity to pitch your business and ultimately sell; if not you’ve lost a sale.
The SERP is one of the most critical pieces of copy in online sales.