Over the past 3.5 years, we’ve helped a number of clients, in a variety of industries, of various profit status, and of different sizes, develop, launch, and analyze online advertising campaigns. The objectives of these clients were also quite diverse. Some simply wanted to create awareness of a new brand, product, or product line. Others, wanted to generate what’s known in the online advertising world as “conversions.” Conversions occur when an individual who is presented with an online ad, clicks on the ad, lands on the advertiser’s web site and then takes a desired action such as making a purchase or donation, signing up for a newsletter, or completing and submitting a contact or inquiry form.

Regardless of an advertiser’s campaign objectives, one of the very first questions that needs to be answered when laying out plans for a campaign and deciding what advertising vehicles to use is, “at the time my campaign launches, will my target audiences be actively searching (via a search engine query) for information related to my product or service?” For example, if a non-profit organization wants to sell tickets to a holiday fundraising event, but doesn’t believe individuals residing in the right geography and who have interests related to the nature of event are aware of the event or would be searching for information on it, then a paid search campaign — a campaign where you pay to have your ad presented to searchers entering appropriate terms into a search engine — to generate event ticket sales is unlikely to be effective or a good use of marketing/promotional $$$.

The same theory described above applies to promoting a product or service that is brand new — not just to the advertiser’s own product and service line-up, we mean one that neither the advertiser nor a competitor has offered in the past. If a product or service is a new offering for an advertiser, but a competitor has offered a similar product or service in the past, then likely the advertiser’s target audience is aware of the product or service and will be searching on it via a search engine like Google or Bing. But, if a product or service has never been available to the desired target audience before from either the advertiser or the advertiser’s competitors, a paid search campaign shouldn’t be expected to yield strong results. In this case, a “display” campaign where you get your ad in front of audiences who are either reading online content related to your product or service, have interests related to your product or service, or who visit Web sites that are relevant to your product or service, makes a lot more sense.

A caveat to the above thinking about paid search being an appropriate means of advertising a product or service that has been available to target audiences in the past because of an advertiser or a competitor of the advertiser offering it, is the following. Particularly with B2B products and services — those sold by one business to another business — the choice regarding from whom to buy products and services is often based on existing relationships and professional networks/networking. CEOs, CFOS, CIOs, and other corporate senior management, as well as small business owners, looking to engage other businesses for products and services may simply look to their existing professional relationships, or reach out to their professional network for referrals. Therefore, before launching a paid search campaign, the advertiser should also give thought to whether or not they think their target audience would be looking to identify a vendor for their particular product or service via a search engine query, or if sales are more likely to be relationship-driven.

Advertisers should also be cautious about running paid search campaigns just because they see their competitors doing so. Unfortunately, there is no way to know if a competitor’s paid search ads are generating good results for them. They may be running ads and their sales results may simultaneously be impressive, but there could be one or several other marketing activities responsible for generating sales vs. paid search generating them.

If you’ve read our other blog or social media posts related to the topics of paid search and online advertising, in general, you know that we believe that paid search is an excellent opportunity to get in front of target audiences who are actively searching for relevant product or service information. And, we love the fact that advertisers only pay for advertising when individuals click on their ad and end up on their Web site vs. paying for ad “impressions” each time their ad is shown. Plus, certainly, paid search can improve where an advertiser falls in the list of search results presented by a search engine in response to an appropriate search query.  Nonetheless, as we’ve outlined above, paid search isn’t for everyone. Banner advertising where you purchase advertising directly from one or several Web sites that your target audience is likely to visit, or display advertising, described above, might be your best online advertising options. We’d welcome helping you decide whether paid search advertising, display advertising, banner advertising, all three of them, or none of them, are the right fit for your marketing campaign objectives, so reach out to us any time for a complimentary discussion.

We’re starting this post with the basics for those who are new to SEO, the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. What SEO really means is developing and implementing effective strategies to ensure your brand and organization appear at the top of search engine results/listings when someone types search terms appropriate to your organization into a search engine, particularly Google.

There are two broad means of ensuring your organization appears above your competitors in search engine results for relevant terms, or at a minimum, appears on the first page of search engine results (let’s face it, many searchers don’t scroll past the first or second page of search engine results, so if your organization doesn’t appear on the first two pages — and ideally the first one — your firm is not well-positioned to create awareness, sales or other conversion activities, such as soliciting donations or newsletter sign-up.) As the below image shows, these two broad means that determine where a listing of your organization appears in search engine results are: 1) where your organization falls organically in the results listing a search engine, like Google or Bing, serves up naturally, based on their complex algorithms, and 2) where any “paid search” advertising appears that you run in hopes of causing your organization/brand to appear at the top of and/or on the first page of search engine results listings.

Now that the SEO basics/refreshers are behind us, on to the key topic for this post and that is “keywords!” Keywords relate to and influence both organic search engine results ranking and paid search engine results ranking. Keywords are the single words or combination of words you should use in your Web site content and employ in any SEO-related tagging capability available through your Web site Content Management System (CMS). Keywords should be words that your target audience(s) will understand and use when reading about or investigating your product or service. They need to speak your target audience’s language.

Why You Shouldn’t “Keyword Stuff” Or Use Irrelevant Keywords On Your Website

As discussed in our “SEO Is Not For Sissies” blog post, while you want to make sure your Web site contains appropriate keywords for cataloging/sweeping/tagging by various search engines, you need to be authentic to be viewed as creditable by both your target audience(s) and search engines. So, be sure not to sprinkle keywords that are irrelevant to the products or services you offer throughout your site or include them on an irrelevant page on your site in a misguided attempt to improve where your organization appears in search engine results for what you believe are desirable keywords. Search engines will recognize an organization who is being disingenuous and “ding you” for such practices. So tell your story truthfully.

The above practice of only employing keywords on your site that are relevant and appropriate to both your organization and the Web site page in-question holds true for any paid search advertising you purchase. When assigning what’s known as a “quality score” to each keyword, paid search advertising providers, such as Google, look at the relevancy between the keyword (aka search terms you want to provoke your advertising/have it presented), your advertising copy, and the content found on the “landing page” to which your ad will take someone who clicks on it. The higher your quality score, the more likely your ad vs. your competitor’s will be presented to an individual searching on appropriate search terms, and the less your advertising will cost you.

How Long-tail Keywords Support SEO and Being Found On Google

One final, but critical reminder about keywords. Keywords can be as short as one word or as long as ten, but regardless of whether they are used to prompt paid search advertising or organic search results via their use on your Web site, they need to be long and descriptive enough to avoid having your site or advertising presented in search engine results to the wrong individuals or in the wrong situation. Let’s say you are selling “Boston Red Sox hats”. Then, an important and the appropriate keyword for use on your Web site or in paid search advertising would be “Boston Red Sox hats” vs. the shorter keyword “Boston hats”. Keywords that are longer in nature are known as long-tail keywords and long-tail keywords ensure that you drive the right target audiences to your Web site via organic and paid search engine results listings.

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Results Communications and Research is a Yoast-SEO-certified shop.We’re always here and glad to discuss and help with SEO and keyword planning (including conducting keyword research for you), so please reach out when you need our expertise.