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Search Marketing Lab Report
In these crazy economic times, many businesses are so caught up in maintaining the status quo that they forget to grow. That's right: expanding your business should STILL be a priority, no matter how shaky things might look around you. There are still markets with potential customers waiting to be served... and you may be just the person to do it! Not to mention that a recent article in PC World indicated that now is the BEST time to start a new business. So why not seize the opportunity to take yours to the next level? This month, our feature article is on how to use search data to find new markets to target -- both the data you can collect from your own stats and customers, and the general trends that search engines like Google are seeing right now. You'll also get great hints on SEO-friendly site design from the folks at BagBorroworSteal.com, where every move they make is designed to have a positive impact on their search engine ranking. Watch for search marketing news, too, and a forum Q&A on silos, and the most effective ways to link niche-specific information on your website. And don't forget to check out our video on "How Search Engines Work" at the end -- along with a link to our very own video channel on YouTube! Your Internet Marketing Center Team Are you content to leave your online business exactly the way it is right now... forever? Of course not! You want to see it grow, thrive, and bring in more money. But you've likely become so entrenched in the day-to-day operations of your business that you've forgotten all about its growth potential. Either that, or you can't face the thought of all those hours of extra work to come up with a new product to sell. Well, never fear! You don't necessarily have to start from scratch. You can build on your existing business to expand your sales into areas that show patterns of popularity. With a little bit of this product trending research, you can develop a solid strategy that will get your business on track for rapid growth (and more money for you)! Gather your data before you begin You never want to spend your precious time and effort on something without first gathering as much background information as you can. In this case, you need to collect all the data you can about how your customers are behaving in the marketplace and what they're looking for. Let's talk about the INTERNAL DATA you already have and how you can use it to gather the information you need.
1. PPC Data This data will show you what your target market is looking for in the search engines -- and whether or not you have been hitting the mark with your ads. Take a look at all the PPC ads you've run. Which ones attract the most clicks? Which ones make the most conversions? Which ads are attracting clicks, but not conversions? The ads with the most click-throughs will tell you what people want -- and what you are referring to in those ads is important to the market. What's important to the market is what you should be delivering to them! Is that happening in your business today? Are you delivering exactly what the market is responding to? If not, then you'll be getting high click-throughs, but low conversions. Is it possible that the keywords being searched mean something different to the market than you once thought? If so, what OTHER possibilities could there be? Could those possibilities be a future product in the making? Markets change all the time, so this is a wonderful opportunity for you to grow your business. 2. SEO Data SEO data tells you what keyphrases actually brought visitors to your site from the search engines. You can get it from your analytics program, or the weblogs that your host provides. If you look at 3, 6 or even 12 months worth of keyphrase data, you may see that you're getting traffic for keyphrases you never ever considered! Take the keyphrases that visitors have been searching for and enter them into a spreadsheet in a program like Microsoft Excel. Then cluster them by intention, just the same way as when you're doing keyword research. When you take similar words and phrases and cluster them into groups, you will quickly start to notice a series of trends. The clusters with the most keyphrases are the ones you should pay particular attention to. Are you offering a solution to these searches? There may be a new product
opportunity sitting right there waiting for you to exploit it! 3. Email Marketing Data Next comes email marketing data. Your email service provider (ESP) should be able to provide the following statistical information for you:
... among other vital stats. With ongoing email marketing, and effective tracking of those emails you can learn a tremendous amount about what does -- and doesn't -- work for your subscribers. You will learn what subject lines appeal, what body copy appeals, and what links people clicked on most! All of this tells a story about where your market's interests lie. Chances are, most of your email marketing has been related to products you already have or currently promote. But have you used these email marketing strategies to TEST the receptiveness of your market to something you are thinking of offering (based on what you have learned from your PPC and SEO data)? Testing in this way can provide you with information you will never get elsewhere.
These are loyal subscribers; they trust you and they are more likely to buy
from you than anyone else. So why not ask them what they are interested in
most? 4. Survey Data Don't forget to ASK the people you want to sell to! Surveying your market is an excellent approach to product trending and may be one of the best -- and most simple -- ways to test before launching. Whether you survey your market via PPC ads, site surveys, or by email, you are asking the market to tell you what they want. You need to be strategic with your questions so you can take action on every response, but overall the responses will give you an excellent idea about what your market is currently looking for. If you ask the question: “Would you like to learn more about…?” and the majority answer is YES -- then you go ahead to test that product! If the majority answer is NO, then it's not the right product. It really is that easy! The more surveying you do, the more likely you are to succeed with your product launches, as you will ONLY launch what gets the majority vote! Don't forget to ask your market for ideas too... things you haven't even considered. Add questions to your survey like, “What is the biggest challenge you have in this area?” This will open the floor to those answers... and the majority vote wins again. Your own data is incredibly valuable to your business, so spend as much time as you can gathering the information you need. But what about EXTERNAL DATA? External sources include:
These sources will also provide you with excellent insight into your market and its needs. 1. Keyword Research Tools With keyword research tools -- like the kind you find in our BeBiz -- you can learn about historical and real-time searches being done by your market. These tools can tell you what keywords people are searching, what specifications they are asking for, and how many competing websites are out there. Again, take the most commonly searched keyphrases and cluster them in a program like Excel. You'll soon learn where the majority of interests lie. Roll out test pages or surveys relating to those interests and analyze that data for answers. The smarter you get with your data analysis, the easier it will be to plan for your success! 2. Trend Tracking Tools With trend tracking tools (such as Google Suggest, Google Trends or Google Insights for Search) you can learn the who, what, where, and when behind the searches being done online. If, for example, you find out from these tools that your market is largely located in India, you may need to customize your product to suit their economy, their cultural differences, their local resources, etc. This would also assist you hugely with your marketing efforts, since you would be better off geo-targeting your PPC ads, for example. You can also learn about what time of year the searches are being run. You can then plan your new product launches to coincide with them! 3. Product Reviews On sites such as Amazon.com, eOpinions.com, ResellerRatings.com, Zappos.com, and BizRate.com you can read reviews that customers have written about products they have already purchased. Check the reviews for products similar to the ones you are considering. With that knowledge, you will know what you must include as well as what to avoid when creating your own! And it's all FOR FREE. 4. Social Networking But wait, there's more! There is a mass collection of social data at your fingertips -- any given day, any given time. So much, in fact, that if analyzed properly, you should NEVER AGAIN have questions about what your market wants most and why! Within groups, forums, blogs and other social site networks (like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter) you can act like a fly on the wall and absorb the real essence of your market. That includes all the raw, honest and unedited communications shared among users -- all of which is relevant to your business and the problems your market is looking for the solutions to. If they're asking questions, need support, need ideas, or pretty much anything at all… you can read about it. And if they are raving or complaining, you can learn how they really feel. The sky is the limit with what you can discover! Love your data Sometimes all it takes is for the information to be laid out in front of you like this, so you can see how easy it is to take action and start growing your business today! Instead of just randomly casting about for new ideas, let your market do all the work and tell you what it really wants. It might seem daunting at first, but once you wrap your head around collecting, clustering, and analyzing your data, there really is no end to what you can achieve for your business. And by conducting this sort of market analysis and product trending, you
are ensuring the growth of your business... now and for many years to come! There are plenty of free trending tools available on the Internet. Not surprisingly, Google leads the way with some incredibly useful tools that tap into the online giant's wealth of statistical search engine knowledge. But there are several other sites you can also turn to for information on what people are searching for on the Internet. Check out our top 10 tools to see what works best for you! Google Searches Related To When you do a Google search, look at the bottom of your browser window. There you'll see a selection of other related keywords. These are keywords that people used to refine their searches after they used your keyword. This is a great little tool, although the searches are "overall" -- not based on a particular period of time. eBay Pulse You might not immediately think of eBay when you're looking for a trending tool, but actually eBay Pulse is a fantastic resource for monitoring what people are looking to buy. You can keep an eye on the most popular searches as well as new searches (great for emerging trends). Not to mention that it has a calendar feature that allows you to look for what people were searching for on particular dates. Google Insights for Search Google Insights for Search is probably the most comprehensive trend tool. It's based on Google Trends (see below!) Enter a term you're interested in and you'll see how the volume of searches has changed over time, where the searches originated, and which related search terms are most popular or gaining popularity. You can apply filters to your search terms so you're not getting skewed results when a search term could mean more than one thing (e.g., Olympic Mountains vs. Olympic Games). And you can also use it to see trends on the various "arms" of Google Search, like News, Images, etc. Google Zeitgeist Google Zeitgeist gives you collated yearly and monthly searches. See who the newsmakers were, what terms became less popular, and any number of other categories. Good for spotting past trends although the data isn't current. Google Trends Google Trends looks at a portion of Google's web searches to see how many have been done for the term, relative to total searches done on Google over time. You can get positively obsessed with the Hot Trends function, which is an up-to-the-minute search display! TrendHunter TrendHunter keeps an eye on cool trends as they come and go, rather than the things people are necessarily searching for on the Internet. It's a great spot to get ideas, which you can analyze on another tool. Top Ten Wholesale Trends Top Ten Wholesale Trends not only helps you find product trends as they happen, but also allows you to locate the best suppliers. You can use a date range to see which months of the year are typically the best for selling the products you're looking at. Trendpedia Trendpedia concentrates
on what is being searched for in the blogosphere (as opposed to websites in
general). You can monitor what is being discussed on the Internet, and access
those blogs that are covering the hot topics. 3. Highlights from the Search Marketing Lab Google invites users to "slice and dice" search results Marissa Meyer, head of Search Products at Google, announced a few days ago that they were set to offer a new set of technologies geared to helping searchers "slice and dice" their results. They've also developed a brand new tool designed to help users find the actual information they're seeking... not just web pages! As Meyer says in a recent blog post, "As people get more sophisticated at search they are coming to us to solve more complex problems. To stay on top of this, we have spent a lot of time looking at how we can better understand the wide range of information that's on the Web and quickly connect people to just the nuggets they need at that moment. We want to help our users find more useful information, and do more useful things with it." To that end, here are the three new developments:
Paid search takes a hit According to research analysis firm Hitwise, paid search has taken a bit of a tumble in 2009. From their blog:
Does this mean that search marketing is on the way out? No way! While many companies are cutting back their search budgets to focus on email marketing or social media marketing, other sites are diving into the pool, hoping to snag new markets and conversions while their competitors step out of the ring. If you're still doing PPC, make sure you're doing regular checkups on your keywords to make sure you're taking advantage of any fresh opportunities! Online Ads: Not just for clicking anymore! A recent study by Forrester Consulting for iProspect shows that online ads are more effective than the click-through rates would indicate. The majority of people who respond to a display ad DON'T do it by clicking on the ad itself. They investigate further in other ways.
"The key message from this study is that online display advertising is far from dead -- its 31% direct response rate confirms that," said Robert Murray, iProspect's CEO. "However, it is interesting to see that almost as many people initially respond to display ads by performing a search as those who actually click on an ad. " This is good news for advertisers who are putting cash into display advertising -- there's more traffic headed their way than their click-throughs might suggest! But to take advantage of it, the ads should be teamed up with solid SEO to capture the leads that the ads generate. 4. Frequently asked questions... and answers It can be an interesting challenge to use silos to organize the information on your website -- especially when you have information that could go in more than one of your silos. One of our Search Marketing Lab Forum experts explains the importance of "intent" when it comes to setting up your silos properly... Hragape's question:David's Answer: Hello! 5. Strategies from a Real-Life Success Story: BagBorroworSteal.com When Lloyd Lapidus and Greg Pippo were dreaming up the concept behind their brand new venture in 2004, they had a couple of important people in mind to target as their ideal customers: their wives! The two entrepreneurs had fashion-loving mates who couldn't get enough the latest designer handbags -- but they'd definitely had enough of the designer prices! Enter the genius idea that launched the site: if you could rent luxury items like cars and jets for a taste of the good life, why not something like a Gucci purse? Now they're the toast of fashionistas across the United States who don't want to shell out thousands of dollars every month to be on top of the trends. With a unique business model and a customer-focused site design, they're now well at the top of an industry they practically created... but everyone is scrambling to get in on today!
We recently spoke with their Chief Marketing Officer, Jodi Watson, about their strategies, and where they're headed. Jodi talks about the site's beginnings:
Luxury goods? In these economic times? Jodi says yes, absolutely -- because customers are buying an "experience" when they head to BagBorroworSteal.com, and not simply a product.
So how are they making sure customers know that their unique experience is an option? After all, people are used to renting things like homes and cars... not handbags. As Jodi explained to us, it's because they make being found on the search engines their number one priority.
In fact, no one on the BagBorrowOrSteal.com teams makes a move on the site without asking a very important question:
They thoroughly educate everyone in the company, from IT to Web Design to their Creative group, on how search principles work... how you set up your architecture so the search engines can find every link and every keyword, how the copy and the item descriptions should be set up so search engines read them... the whole nine yards. They've been rewarded with tons of traffic and great results for their target keywords in the search engines. Jodi told us that they place a ton of importance on testing different traffic driving strategies so they're always getting the best results possible in both paid and organic search. For example , when you enter keywords like "rent louis vuitton", you see them dominate the top three results... AND show up in ads for variations on that keyphrase! 
PPC comes into the plan as well, as Jodi explains:
So what elements of your site should you consider when you think "search"?
That's right... there's not a single area of your site that doesn't have some sort of impact on your searchability. So whenever you make a change, or add a product, or consider a new strategy, make SEO your number one priority! Even if you've been active on the Internet for a long time, there's a certain amount of mystery about how search engines like Google and Yahoo actually work. That's why our team put together this fun video for YouTube to lay out the basics of search for old timers and newbies alike. Check it out below: And don't miss the rest of our videos at our very own YouTube channel! Thanks for reading. And don't forget, there's tons more SEO wisdom throughout the site. Take advantage of it... And please let us know what you think. You can contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The Internet Marketing Center Team |
