Marketing in the eConomy
Search Engine Marketing Tactics

Meticulous selection of key-phrases and peripheral
strategies 

By Rob Thrasher

Note: The strategy defined in this article is a direct result of nearly seven years of research and development conducted by the author, me, Rob Thrasher, a 'Five Star' ranked YAHOO! Internet marketing expert.

At the onset of a search engine marketing & optimization campaign it is imperative to conduct initial research to indicate what key-phrases will produce maximum bang for the clients buck. All too often, the very first thing a prospective client does is throw five or six key-phrases off the top of their head that they are convinced will increase their rankings and produce more hits. I dubbed these . intuitive key-phrases. , and in my experience, they turn out to be the actual recommended, or what I call . researched key-phrases. , less than 30% of the time. This phenomenon presents the Web marketing expert with a multifaceted problem that requires answers or more in-depth queries into the following:

1) Do searchers even query on these particular key-phrases?

2) If searchers do type these key-phrases as queries, how many others are competing for the key-phrases.

3) What is the estimated revenue the key-phrase will generate. To answer this we need many pieces of data including:

a) Conversion ratios for the existing site(s).

b) Predicted likely increase in conversion rate from a redesign using market information.

c) Applying formulas to estimate the total number of additional hits that the key-phrase will generate, if the campaign is successful, applying the odds of success in each engine to the result of an approximate revenue generation when the additional hits guess is applied to the conversion ratio.

4) If the key-phrase is not a . money phrase. is it necessary as a branding phrase? i.e. the companies name or top selling brand.

5) IF research shows that the key-phrase is not used on a large-scale, but used very frequently in the clients. industry, as a niche key-phrase, then it is necessary to use a secondary strategy that will strongly highlight possible niche phrases that will generate more Web traffic than traditional power phraseology. I call these strategies peripheral strategies. See more about peripheral strategies below.

6) Continued monitoring to track ROI

7) Finally, how likely is the client willing to abandon the key-phrases that prove to be erroneous? IF you have a possible client that insists you generate more hits and revenue, yet is unwilling, for whatever reason to abandon at least the most obviously flawed phrases, then politely decline the client. Especially after you have explained that the number of hours necessary to achieve the key-phrase when weighed against the cost would produce less ROI than most banner ad campaigns. This client is too stubborn to listen to expert advice and needs to go elsewhere. You will not have a very good chance that you will produce a long-term profitable relationship due to the fact that this client WILL blame you, if not out loud, then in their minds, when the campaign inevitably produces no ROI.

Peripheral Strategies (PS) & Peripheral Branding (PB)

A PS is one with which you attempt to attract people to your Web site with secondary strategies based upon more of a niche ideology. You will find on the Web that people tend to turn towards it for items that are harder to get, or fulfill a niche of some fashion. Thus, there tends to be very little competition for these keywords. Less people type them, but the lack of competition and the degree to which the browser is pre-qualified as a likely buyer means that these key-phrases are worth more per possible click than their more popular counterparts. Peripheral strategies can be conducted within the main site by attaching different meta tags and content and submitted to the search engines, or directories *FYI2, separately from the main sections, or, more effectively, they can exist as a whole new site. A key component to this strategy is a resource center within your site that is also categorized and set up in adherence to the primary and secondary key-phrase strategies. They will follow one of two main types of marketing logic:

1) They. ll be sub-strategies off from the main one within the site whereby they bring a different level to the main strategy. An example of this is building key-phrase strategies focused on smaller picture concepts within the site, or on the less profitable, at least in the . real world. , products or services that might be more popular due to the fact that they are harder to find and have less competition for key-phrases. 

2) They. ll be independent from the main, or sales & marketing, site. A search engine, more of a directory really, with the main categories based entirely around your primary and secondary key-phrases.

This term refers to a particular strategy that, if utilized correctly, can multiply the effect of your search engine marketing & optimization strategy greatly. It is called . Search Engine Squared. due to the fact that you are building your own engine to achieve better rankings in the engines, thus squaring your results. NOTE: It might or might not actually square the results, but it will provide better results. PLEASE NOTE ALSO: This is not a technique to Spam *FYI3 any engine or directory to trick people to come to your site. This strategy provides a useful and valuable tool to your marketplace and is a perfectly valid entity for the search engines to catalog. I have not and will not, here or anyplace, recommend trying to attract people to Web pages that are not directly beneficial and pertinent to the desire and intent of the browser. In fact, as referred to in . Web Surfing. s New Wave. , an article authored by me, Rob Thrasher, and published in the . Home Business Journal. , I predicted the inevitability and necessity for smaller engines serving the needs of browsers in a more niche fashion. So, these smaller engines and directories will play a vital role in redefining how we search on the Web, thus the . SE²ã (Search Engine Squaredã). technique provides a beneficial result to the client as an individual entity AND to the populous of the 'virtual  world' as a whole. The sum of the parts, in this case, will be greater than the whole. Here are the basic components of the SE² technique:

1) The basic premise is based upon effectiveness of doorway pages. But doorway pages tend to be generated using more of an educated, frequently automated, guess framework and don. t provide peripheral content, thus are very close to, if not the definition of, Spam.

2) By securing an industry based and generic domain name, i.e. HardwareStores.com, and placing key-phrases strategically in this new industry specific search engine, YOU now own a valuable source for information and resources within your industry, thus:

a) YOU control which of YOUR banners will show up and when.  

b) YOU determine who gets links and what the priority of those links is, so YOU decide that YOUR links to YOUR resource center in YOUR Web site are higher priority.

c) YOU will become all knowing in the industry since you see postings placed by competitors. Thus, YOU know about new projects about competitors, etc.

d) You determine what the categories in the search engine are and how they are placed, thus giving sections where you are stronger than your competitor more exposure and the ones in which competitors might be stronger less exposure.

3) With very little time and money invested you own a potentially valuable new brand that, again, establishes YOU as a source for information.

4) Since YOU control submittals YOU can determine that there is a particularly high priority project that needs search engine exposure and a good link-base *FYI4 then you simply add 50 or so links to the pages each with its own description, thus launching the project in the engines with the key-phrases already in place. OR, since YOU own the engine, you might decide that YOU want to open up a whole new category in the engine with sub-categories that reflect a brand new search engine key-phrase strategy for the project as a standalone.

5) Know YOU have a resource through which you can offer your clients or partner firms free banner ads. If the brand becomes powerful enough you can generate revenue from very targeted mailing and or banner campaigns.

6) After the initial population of the sites database it will require very little time and effort to manage the engine with the proper tools built into the BackEnd of the engine. A set of virtual rewards can be established to provide an incentive for employees to interact with the site and keep it moving forward.

7) An expert interface can be set in the engine similar to YAHOO! Experts to provide incentive for people outside your organization, or those within the firm exclusively if you wish, it is YOUR engine after all.

8) Ad infinitum&

Summary:

If the Web is used efficiently and by experts the possibilities are literally endless and almost always profitable. The cost of a fell blown search engine campaign like this, including the cost of in-house resources, should be under $250,000. If you get quotes for too much more than this you need to get a few more quotes!

If you would like to ask me, Rob Thrasher, more about Web Marketing, or other technical topics, you can receive free consults, courtesy of YAHOO!, at Experts.Yahoo.com in the . Internet Marketing & Advertising. section. My alias in Yahoo is NDRobRob. ND is short for one of my companies, NETDesign Inc. at http://www.NetdesignInc.com. The double use of my first name is because another person already registered NDRob. Could be me, but I. m not sure.

*FYI:

1) eConomy - The way I spell economy in the . New Economy. . The spelling reflects the duplicity of nature of the 'New Economy' and everything we think of as being redefined in the . New Economy. . It is not pronounced with the emphasis on the 'con' as in economy. It is pronounced with the emphasis on the first . e. .

2) Is it a search engine or a directory? - For the purposes of this article I will use the term . search engine. to include directories, FFA. s (Free For Alls) and other listing sites.  A search engine is typically a Web site that employs automated Web spidering software technology to catalog sites and compile pertinent information about the sites. Engines would typically also utilize algorithms to determine a relevancy factor. Many of the features that distinguish a directory were that of the degree to which they were automated. The directories, i.e. YAHOO, have actual people review sites for validity and content, and always admitted freely that many of the submittals were never seen, and that many of the ones that were reviewed would not get into their listing. This seems to have been a better concept, at least for now, since a click through from YAHOO! Creates more sales as compared to all the major listing sites.

3) Spam - An . eWord. used to denote junk *FYI3. Unsolicited, bulk emails or misleading submittals to listing sites.

4) Link-base - The total number of sites that have links to your site or project. This number is one factor that determines how popular your site is with respect to other sites on the Wen. The more links, the more popular or valid your site appears.

5) Is Spam is bad? - I don. t know why they used the word Spam to denote junk, I like it and I. m not embarrassed to say it.