When you view a search result page in Google, Yahoo! Search or Microsoft Live Search, you almost always see two kinds of results: sponsored links and natural search results.  On Google, for instance, sponsored links can be found on the top and right-hand sections of the page, while natural (or organic) search results can be found in the main section of the page.  At the bottom of the page, you’ll typically see that the page is one of many, many pages of results.

Google Search Result Page

Yahoo! Search Result Page

Microsoft Live Search Result Page

The way in which advertisers (you!) get into the sponsored links sections of those pages is through a bidding process.  Each of the three main players – Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft – have their own bid management platform, which are similar but which also have their own unique ways of getting to the same outcome: paid links on relevant search engine results pages.

So: what does “relevant search engine results pages” mean?

Because searches are typically intention-based – that is, someone will enter one or more words into a search box to find something they’re seeking – advertisers want to be sure their ads show up on pages where the searcher’s intention closely matches the advertiser’s product or service.  This is why the term “keyword” is so important to search marketing and PPC campaign management in particular.

Knowing what keywords searchers will likely employ and that most often relate to your company’s products is critical.  Sometimes this is easy. If you sell red Converse sneakers, for instance, it’s a good bet that the keyword “Converse” is a good one for you, but so is “sneakers” and maybe even “red”.   Over time, advertisers become very knowledgeable about what keywords perform best for them in their PPC campaigns and which do not.  As a result, most advertisers treat their keyword lists as “state secrets” and keep them closely guarded.

Very often, a key goal of PPC campaign management is to get as high up as possible on relevant search result pages as possible.  While being the highest bidder is usually the best way to get to the number one position, there are other variables at work.

Wikipedia offers some insight:

Typically the highest bidder for each keyword will be listed at the top of the search engine listings page. However in recent years the quality and relevance of the landing page (the page to which the sponsored result links) have been added to the algorithm to determine placement.

Pay-per-click campaigns have many, many other variables that can be included, but at a high-level these are the basics.  So, in summary, the three things that are most critical to undertaking a PPC advertising campaign are: have a good idea what keywords are best for you; understand your budget and what it typically costs to bid on your keywords; and be sure the place where your link resolves – your landing page or pages – use the keywords you’ve bid on, and are relevant to the searcher’s intention.

Increasingly, businesses and organizations are deriving their primary traffic – and revenues – from clicks on links in search engine results pages.  Which is why more and more business owners are looking for ways to advertise their products and services through search marketing.  For those already engaged in search marketing, many are looking to how it is they can manage the process more effectively and efficiently.  And all businesses are keenly interested in how it is they can get their ads placed as high up as possible on the first page of results.

Small Plug: Yield Software actively manages PPC campaigns for you because it’s a fully automated and powered by advanced algorithms.  For people new to search marketing, our simple, intuitive systems get you up and going in no time, guiding you through each step of the process.  From determining ideal keywords to setting up campaigns, from managing your budgets to optimizing your landing pages, Yield makes it easy to get started.

For people who are more experienced but who seek to save time and get better results, Yield’s fully automated Web Marketing Suite is designed to do all the critical work for you – 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

For more information about how we can help you with your web marketing efforts, click here.

To see more blog posts in our Introduction to Web Marketing Series, go here.

When you view a search engine result page in Google, Yahoo! Search or Microsoft Live Search, you almost always see two kinds of results: Sponsored Links, which advertisers pay to place on the page, and natural search results.  On Google, for instance, sponsored links can be found on the top and right-hand sections of the page, while natural (or organic) search results can be found in the main section of the page.  At the bottom of the page, you’ll typically see that the page is one of many, many pages of results.

The goal of SEO is to improve the volume and quality of traffic coming to your website from natural search results—traffic that is acquired for free. Obviously, sites that appear very high up on the first page of natural search results tend to see the greatest numbers of clicks and, therefore, traffic.  Which is why businesses, organizations, publications, and information and entertainment sites are increasingly concerned with how they can move links to their sites as high up on page one of natural search results as possible.

Search engines evaluate whether your page is relevant based on a variety of secret and not-so secret criteria.  Most of these criteria are designed to ensure that your page has content relative to the searches query.  This has two effects: first, searchers will be more satisfied with the results provided by the search engine and will become loyal users; and second, advertisers will be willing to pay more for advertising as the search engine will have more loyal and satisfied users.

Determining the keywords that naturally pertain to your business and service – the words that people will naturally enter into search boxes for information about any given topic – is an important first step in optimizing your site for search engines.  Once you’re clear what these keywords are, it’s important to be sure those keywords are represented in the content of your website.

It’s important to note here that each of your pages should be about a specific, unique topic, and not something broad and not something that is trying to match for multiple concepts.  SEO is competitive so you can’t be all things to all people.  It’s also important that you include your keywords in your site’s content in a way that’s both natural and intuitive – simply stuffing a bunch of keywords in your site’s content, for instance, will be a flag to the major search engines that something’s not quite right.

Next, you should make sure your pages are listed with the search engines (you can submit links to each search engine).

Another important step in SEO is ensuring that the title of each of the pages in your website are constructed in such a way that search engines can instantly relate them to relevant keywords searches.  If you’re not the webmaster for your website – that is, if you didn’t build it yourself – it may be difficult to understand how to change these page titles, as they are in the HTML code for your pages and invisible to you when viewing it.

One of the ways in which the major search engines determine the page ranking for your web pages also depends on the number and the quality of third-party links to your pages.  Again, these links must be natural – that is, they shouldn’t be a part of a dishonest linking scheme, as the major search engines have gotten very good at detecting these.

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have tons of other ways to determine how it is your site will rank on a search result page for any given keyword query.  So it is the best policy to fill your website with content that is an honest reflection of your goods and services, as well as a reflection of the customers you do serve and whom you seek to serve.

Over time many people have concocted shady ways of getting at SEO for websites.  According to Wikipedia:

[A] class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

It is through authentic, high-integrity website creation – designed with your customers in mind first and foremost – that you are most likely to succeed in optimizing your site for the major search engines.

Small Plug: take a 30-day free trial of our Yield Web Marketing Suite, which includes fully automated processes for optimizing your website for search engines.  You get very practical, highly actionable to-do lists for improving and optimizing your website that are simple to understand and easy to act on.  SEO doesn’t have to be hard or intimidating, and we’d love to show you how.

For more information on the Yield Web Marketing Suite, go here.

To see Google’s guidelines for building and optimizing websites, go here.

To see more blog posts in our Introduction to Web Marketing Series, go here.