Tweet

SEM - Research Measures Success

Written by: Daria Goetsch

Article Overview: Search engine marketing (SEM)success comes from good research. By applying research to understand your competition and target audience, your optimization efforts will succeed. Your visitors need to relate to you and understand your message and what you want them to do.

SEM - Research Measures Success

Search engine marketing (SEM)success comes from good research. By applying research to understand your competition and target audience, your optimization efforts will succeed. Remember when homework from school often required some research on your part to complete? It is much the same scenario for search engine marketing: you need to apply yourself by researching in order to understand your competition and target audience. Your visitors need to relate to you and understand your message and what you want them to do.

Know Your Competition

Take a good look at your top competition and see what they are offering online. Even looking at websites that are not direct competitors may give you an idea of what to offer your visitors. Think of it this way: someone put effort into creating those websites. Visit your competitor's website. Search in the major search engines for your most important keyword phrases and see if your competitors show up in the top thirty search engine results. Learn what you can and see if what they are doing is something you should be doing. It's always good to know if your competitors are using search engine optimization, link building, social networking, PPC, and other means to rank well.

What's Your Point?

Ok, so you've got this product you want to sell online. What are you saying to your audience? Make sure you write in a clear, concise way so your message does not get lost in the process. Just because everyone in your company understands your message doesn't mean the visitors to your site will. Have a few test scenarios set up; ask a few objective readers what they understand from your website and see just how much your message is getting across. You'd be surprised that what may be obvious to you is not necessarily obvious to your website visitors. If you are having trouble creating a clear message for your website, consider hiring a copywriter to convey what you want to say.

Know Your Target Audience

Who buys your product and why? Who needs the information you have on your website? Who would you like to have visit your website that isn't already there? Who is visiting you? Are they professionals who understand your technical terms or visitors of varying levels who all need the same information from you? What do you offer that a certain market would want from you? Take the time to get a good look at what is out there and how your competitors are presenting their information to online visitors. Use your log statistics reports to track who comes to your website. Get familiar with the keyword terms they are using in the search engines to find you. Research the domains that most visit you. Find out why visitors are clicking away from certain pages before going deeper into the content of your website. Is it a lack of information? Too many choices to click on? Is the language used or instructions given easy to understand? Don't give your visitors a reason to leave before they understand your message.

Know Your Competition

Take a good look at your top competition and see what they are offering online. Even looking at websites that are not direct competitors may give you an idea of what to offer your visitors. Think of it this way: someone put effort into creating those websites. Visit your competitor's website. Search in the major search engines for your most important keyword phrases and see if your competitors show up in the top thirty search engine results. Learn what you can and see if what they are doing is something you should be doing. It's always good to know if your competitors are using SEO, Paid Inclusion, PPC, Link Building and other means to rank well.

Make Your Website Accessible

There's nothing worse than muddling through a website looking for what you want and clicking so much you finally give up. Use easy navigation, make sure your information or products are easily accessible to your visitors. Create written text that is easily understood in order to get your message across readily. Give your visitors plenty of written information. There's no such thing as "too much text" when it comes to search engine robots "understanding" your web pages. What's good for the visitor is often good for the search engine robots.

Do The Work

Research is the cornerstone to your success. The more you know about your subject, the better you will be able to inform your visitors. By informing your visitors you build trust and interest in learning more about your website. Do the math - get searching!

Related Articles
  What Success Means to People
  Domestic farm support programs in developed countries: Provisions of Agreement on Agriculture
  Market access: Provisions of Agreement on Agriculture
  Balanced Scorecard: Measuring the Important Stuff
  Lead measures matter much more than lag measures

Article Tags: competitor, copywriter, homework, informa, keyword phrases, major search engines, ppc, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine results, social networking, success comes from, target audience, test scenarios, website search, website visitors, websites visit



Related Forum Posts
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!! - Success = Thinking (Head) + Heart (Feeling / Interest) + Hand (doing/ action). Success - H3 Robert
NEW PRODUCTS LIKE = Projector phone in the market - Hi ideasuniversity, I'm back. This just shows that there is no end to new stuff coming out. Someone has to work on it. Research and Development never stops. Has anyone a new idea? Let us know what it is. Maybe it can be shown here first in the future.
Information about doing franchise business in China - CHINA’S FRANCHISE LEGAL SYSTEM Introduction Franchises has a history of more than one hundred years in foreign countries, now it has developed to be a mature business mode, and it is widely used in many countries, especially the developed ones. Recently, franchises has been developing fast in China, covering more than sixty industries and trades such as catering, retailing, clothes-washing, indoor decorations and gym. However, the market order of franchises is chaotic in some industries and areas. There are also some illegal and criminal activities under the guise of franchises. Under such circumstances, several important laws have been promulgated to regulate the commercial franchising activities. Applicable Legislation The main legislative provisions governing the commercial franchising in the PRC are: the Measures on Administration of Commercial Franchises; and the Measures on Administration of Archival Filing of Commercial Franchises; and the Measures on Administration of Information Disclosure of Commercial Franchises Qualification for Franchisors According to the laws, the franchisors as those enterprises who own such business sources as registered trademarks, enterprise logos, patents and proprietary technology, and license these business sources to franchisees. Firstly, the franchisors shall be enterprises, excluding other economic organizations and individuals. Secondly, the trademarks which can be licensed to franchisees shall be registered trademarks. According to the Trademark Law, the trademarks, whether registered or not, are protected under the laws, though there is difference in the vigor and extents of protection. It seems that the Ministry of Commerce has restrictions in recognizing trademarks, since it only provides “own trademarks to be licensed to others” at large, which causes chaos in practice. In the cases relevant to franchising disputes which we provided legal service to, all of them involve the situation that the franchisors granted licenses of non-registered trademarks or the trademarks which were in application to others, and when there was infringement on trademarks, the franchisors were unable to prevent infringement on trademarks. Then the interests of the franchisees could not be realized. What’s more, franchising activities with non-registered trademarks also, to some extent, encourage commercial frauds. Thirdly, the logos, patents and proprietary technology of enterprises are included in the business sources to be licensed to others for the first time, which enlarges the application scope of franchises and will improve the development of franchises. Requirements to be Met in Carrying on Franchising Activities In addition to the condition that only the enterprises will be allowed to carry on franchising activities referred to above, the franchisors shall also have mature business modes, and are able to provide business guidance, technology support and training. The enterprises which copy the manuals, websites and enlisting documents of others, and have no service abilities for providing business guidance, technology support and training shall be excluded. What needs pointing out is that even these enterprises that are allowed to carry on business may face with the suits claiming them for unfair competition and infringements on intellectual properties. In addition, the Measures clearly request that the franchisors shall operate at least two directly operated shops, and the period of operation shall be more than 1 year, which aims to prevent frauds by the way of franchising. Information Disclosure Requirements and Regulation on Franchisors Information disclosure system is the core system of franchising. The laws provides that the franchisors shall establish and implement a perfect information disclosure system, and provide the relevant information and franchising contracts in written form, at least thirty days before execution of franchising contracts. It also sets out the specific provisions on the information which shall be provided by franchisors, including the basic conditions and commercial reputation records of the franchisors and their legal representatives, business sources owned by franchisors, abilities of franchisors to provide service to franchisees and management and supervision on business of franchisees, franchisee fees and the payments, and budgets for investment in franchising shops. To the franchisors that violate these provisions, the authorities in charge of commerce will order them to rectify, charge penalties and make public statements. Archival Filing and Public Announcement Systems To protect the franchisees’ lawful rights and interests, considering the asymmetric information between franchisors and franchisees, in addition to intensifying information disclosure requirements and regulating the activities of franchisors, the Measures also bring in the archival filing and public announcement systems. The Measures provides that the franchisors shall make a filing with the commerce administrative department within 15 days after the execution of franchising contracts for the first time. Anyone who intends to engage in any commercial franchise activities within a province, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the Central Government shall go through the archival filing formalities in the commerce administrative department of the people’s government of the province, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the Central Government where the franchisors are located. Anyone who intends to engage in any commercial franchise activities beyond a province, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the Central Government shall go through archival filing formalities in the commerce administrative department of the State Council. Any franchisor having been engaging in franchise activities before May 1, 2007 shall apply for archival filing at the commercial administrative department. The Ministry of Commerce has established the national network for archival filing work relating to commercial franchise. Any franchisor shall go through the archival formalities through the government website. The general public may obtain the following information through the government website of the Ministry of Commerce: (1)The registered trademark(s), enterprise mark(s), patent(s), know-how and other business resources of the franchisor; (2)The franchisor’s archival filing date; (3)The location of the legal business place, contact information and name of the legal representative of the franchisor; and (4)The location of the business place of the franchisee(s) within China. The authorities in charge of filing will cancel the archival filing if there is any following activities of franchisors, and make public announcement on the government website: (1) the business licenses of the franchisors have been withdrawn by the registration administrative authorities for illegal business; (2) the authorities in charge of filing receive judicial suggestion letter on cancellation of archival filing from the judiciary for illegal business by franchisors; (3) the franchisors conceal the relevant information or provide false information, which has been proved; (4) the franchisors carry on cancellation by themselves. In addition, the illegal activities of the franchisors will be announced to the public. By Erex Chen, a Chinese lawyer based in Shanghai.
Re: What I'm reading this weekend - Feb 18, 2011 - Hi Evan, Thank you for a great list as usual, I haven't had the chance until now to read them as I spent all yesterday helping my father to re-build half of his house (or it seemed that way,LOL) I will make a start reading them today and I particularly like the look of Keyword Research in Google Webmaster Tools, thanks again, Mal.
Re: What to do at the first roadblock? - We couldn't get out of competition and thus, we just have to conquer them with the best ways we can: Research is the key to get to know their strengths and weaknesses! Starting from that, you can now implement the things that they haven't utilized yet and add your own concepts. That way, it's easier to market because you can either magnet their audience out or make even bigger results in the future. Eitherway, it's not that you cheat and succeed but it's how you study your possible capabilities.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Civility in the Workplace---Is it Decreasing?

In the Year 2020 . . . Process

E Mail Marketing Campaigns

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.