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United States President-elect Barack Obama spent $7.97 million on online advertising before November. The Obama campaign managers spent it on search engine marketing, ad networks, social networks, local TV sites, newspaper sites and even NBA.com.

Think that’s a lot of money? Well, let’s put it into perspective. Obama spent over half that budget, i.e. $4 million, on one 30 minute television commercial in October.

Google got nearly half of Obama’s online budget, with nearly $3.5 million going into Google search. Yahoo search got just $673,000 in October.

Source: Nicholas Carlson, “Obama’s Online Spend: Actually Tiny,” Silicon Alley Insider, November 6, 2008

Compiling keyword lists is an integral part of search engine marketing. It’s arguably an integral part of niche research too. But if you’re relying solely on ‘keyword tools’ to compile your lists, you may be missing out on some significant opportunities.

By their very nature, tools that track the popularity of keywords are retrospective, rather than forward-looking. On that basis, if you’re able to identify terms about to become popular - or jump on terms that have just become popular - you may be able to achieve some quick, significant wins in terms of generating and converting traffic.

Therefore a sound approach to keyword compilation is to use a good tool to identify the quality words in your niche, as well as use a ‘nose for news’ to identify promising words.

MarketingSherpa recommends using a two-step approach where you begin with proprietary research to compile an initial list, and then use a reliable tool to generate a more finely tuned list. To compile the general list:

1. Consider your own product names, terms used on your site, and internal site search query terms.
2. Look at industry marketing materials, press releases and similar content.
3. Research online forums, blogs and social media sites for what words your target audience is using.
4. Perform competitive analysis of how other companies are positioning their sites and search ads.

After your initial research is done, the next step is to use a keyword research tool to fine-tune your overall list:

5. Use the tool to generate additional, related terms.
6. Check your existing list for estimates of search volume and competition ie. for pay-per-click (PPC) and organic search engine marketing purposes.
7. Look through historical search queries for any unusual search syntax to help you generate new search phrases

Source: MarketingSherpa, “Special Report: Online Keyword Research Guide: 5 Tips & 9 Useful Tools”, MarketingSherpa, Jun 26, 2008

It can be highly tempting to rely SOLELY on keyword research tools. Both to indicate what keywords your target market is using to find your kinds of products and services, and what keywords to target for search engine optimization.

After all, the good tools reflect what people are actually searching on… not anyone’s opinion or theory of what they’re searching on.

But are they the be-all and end-all?

Then answer is NO.

There are two main problems with the data generated by even the best keyword tools:

1. It’s retrospective - it tells us what people have searched on in the past, not necessarily what they will search on in the future. Now, depending on your market, people may not use significantly different keywords going forward. On the other hand, you could miss out on huge opportunities to capitalize on the most topical issues and developments by focusing entirely on past search queries. For example, it took one announcement for searches on words related to Governor Sarah Palin to skyrocket in the search engines.
2. A lot of your competitors are not only looking at the same data but may also be typing in those keywords, thereby distorting how often your target market really is using various search phrases. Again, this may not be significant… but if you’re in a hyper-competitive market it may be significant enough for you to make erroneous decisions about which keywords to target.

By all means use a quality keyword research tool (some good ones are listed below). But I also recommend keeping abreast of what’s happening in your industry and the media for news that may impact on what people search on… and what keywords YOU target for search engine marketing purposes.

Tools I like:

• Wordtracker: http://www.wordtracker.com
• Keyword Discovery: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com
• Google AdWords Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

MarketingSherpa recently published a case study about a software company, Business Objects, that wanted to split-test its landing pages in an effort to increase conversion rates. Only problem was… it couldn’t test everything. A number of corporate and branding guidelines meant that a lot of the page and its components were off-limits.

I can relate to this because just a couple of months ago I started working with a large corporate to do the very same thing. While the company had been spending many thousands of dollars per month on both pay-per-click (PPC) and display advertising ($20,000 to $60,000 on PPC alone) it had never consistently directed such paid traffic to dedicated landing pages (it used regular internal website pages instead). And it had certainly never split-test landing pages.

Consequently, I was part of an effort to make dedicated landing pages the norm and to start split-testing alternative pages. As with Business Objects, a number of elements just couldn’t be changed for the purposes of testing. But, fortunately for us, the existing pages to which our search engine marketing (SEM) traffic was directed were so poor that it wouldn’t take much to make substantial improvements!

In fact, the first new landing page we implemented resulted in a 70 percent increase in conversions. Yes, 70 PERCENT. We used a slick, but simple new layout, ripped out all the competing “call to action” and other navigation links, and made the desired call to action much more prominent. And, trust me, we are only at the start of making radical improvements to the company’s paid search results.

Meanwhile, the Business Objects case study is instructive for clarifying three key elements that should be varied and tested where, for whatever reason - whether it’s corporate constraints or your own time constraints - you just can’t test everything:

1. Value proposition or offer.
2. Clarity of the presentation i.e. the layout and content of the headline, body copy, call to action, etc.
3. Distractions on the page e.g. navigation links, competing links, etc.

In Business Objects’ case, one of its test pages included using a much stronger call to action, which the company believes significantly contributed to its 32.5 percent increase in conversions. Moreover, by split-testing and identifying and implementing a superior approach (i.e. the more highly converting landing page) the company was also able to dramatically increase its return on investment (ROI) - by 154 percent.

This brings me to another key point about testing and improving landing pages - it reduces your cost per customer acquisition. In other words, you don’t have to pay as much on SEM to acquire a customer.

All in all, it’s certainly worth using dedicated landing pages (not just one of your usual internal website pages) and testing alternative landing pages to increase conversions, reduce your customer acquisition cost and increase your ROI. If, however, you’re limited as to what you can test, consider just focusing on the offer, the presentation of the offer, and getting rid of distractions (such as unnecessary links) on the landing page.

Source: MarketingSherpa, “Landing Page Site Redesign Passes Test: Conversions Lift 32.5%; ROI at 154%”, MarketingSherpa, September 10, 2008

Jack Marshall, writing for The Clickz Network, reports that U.K. marketers may be investing in search engine marketing at the expense of website usability.

Mr Marshall quotes the 2008 Online Conversion Report released by U.K. digital firm Rawnet. This indicates that 78 percent of British consumers have been deterred from dealing with companies because of hard-to-use websites. Furthermore, 20 percent of those surveyed regarded the most creative and spectacular sites as typically difficult to navigate.

Rawnet’s findings underscores the need for Internet marketers to remain mindful of usability and conversions. Should you spend an extra dollar on getting more traffic… or boosting your conversion rate?

Source: Jack Marshall, “U.K. Marketers Neglecting Site Usability, Blinded by Paid Search”, The ClickZ Network, September 4, 2008