Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing isn’t just throwing a bunch of ideas against the wall to see what sticks (although that is fun).  It involves plenty of strategy and marketing theories, not to mention lots and lots of tracking.  In fact, one of the great benefits of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the ability to accurately measure success.  We use four criteria to measure and track effectiveness: ranking, traffic, conversion rates and referral rates.

Search Engine Ranking

Once upon a time, if your site’s keywords had first place rankings then you had succeeded in your search engine marketing campaign.  Now we know that great rankings are just part of SEM success.  Though necessary, those first place spots are worthless unless they are driving the right traffic to your site.

Traffic

If your site has strong rankings but you’re still not seeing an increase in sales, chances are your site is generating the wrong kind of traffic. Hard to believe, but having a ton of visitors isn’t the key to success. You don’t want just anyone to visit your site; you want traffic that wants what your company has to offer. We’ll develop a list of keywords that will drive these qualified visitors to your site. You can just sit back and enjoy the higher conversion rates.

Conversion Rate

A conversion rate represents the leads and sales generated from your search engine marketing. So what kind of conversions should you expect? The average Website has a conversion rate of 1.8%, but some of our e-commerce sites boast conversion rates as high as 18%.

Referral Rate

The referral rate is the percentage of traffic sent to your site by the search engines. The average website has a search engine referral rate of only 6.8%. We show search engine referral rates as high as 48%-67% for our established clients, while newer clients average a 25% referral rate.