Search engine marketing can be a complex and scary topic. Endless techniques on how to advertise and market. Many of them are complicated and confuse the marketers. Seek out advisors who can guide you with simple explanations and techniques based on real results. A list of four tips business owners and marketers can use in creating an effective search engine marketing strategy.

1. Your Internet Marketing Strategy Goal

Many consultants will tell you to set goals about what you want to achieve with your website. Forget it. Those are distractions from the real question you need to ask yourself, which is

“What is THE purpose of my website?”

Once you answer that question, all other aspects of search engine marketing strategy can be leveraged to help you achieve that purpose. Typically, people use their website for many different purposes. Regardless, you still need to answer this question. The focus you will get from it will help you create a more effective strategy.

Here are the top three most common answers to the question “What is THE purpose of my website?”

1. To sell products or services

2. To generate leads for my sales team

3. To educate my target audience

It can be this simple! Just decide which of the three answers above suits you best and then move on to step 2.

2. Search Engine Marketing Plan

There’s a reason why search engine marketing is so hot. It works. It consistent generates leads, sales, etc. at a lower cost-per-lead or cost-per-sale than traditional mediums like TV or direct mail advertising. It makes sense when you think about it: when people want to find something online, they go to Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Bing etc. and search for it.

Search engine marketing is all about SHOWING UP when people search for what you sell, offer, or have on your website. There is a growing body of knowledge (books, articles, etc.) on how to do this. And like anything else, it has become over analyzed and too complex. Some search engine marketing techniques are ethical and legitimate, while some are not. The best approach is to create a search engine marketing plan that focuses on two aspects:

1. Search engine optimization (SEO) – showing up in the “free” area of the search engine’s results

2. Pay-per click advertising – showing up in the “paid” area of the search engine’s results

For search engine optimization, there just isn’t a way to easily get ranked consistently high in the search engines. It is a combination of factors that always come down to one underlying truth: build your website according to web standards, with a focus on accessibility for all.

Just like search engine optimization, there is no “silver bullet” for pay-per click advertising, either. Instead, the formula for PPC success is in well-placed bids (what you will pay to have your ad show up) combined with meaningful landing pages (where people go when they click on your ad).

3. Conduct Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The goal of search engine optimization is to make changes to your website to get higher rankings in search engines. Yet, search engine optimization is a confusing sector. On one hand, there are “snake oil salesmen” ready to get you a #1 ranking with their latest trick. On the other hand, the things that actually do work are very simple.

The best strategy to take is a common-sense approach to SEO: develop standards for your website that ALL pages must adhere to. If you do this, and enforce it, you can then branch out to some of the other “niche” aspects of SEO.

Here’s a sample list of SEO standards to enforce on your website:

1. Write descriptive HTML page titles that really describe the page it is on (in 255 characters or less)

2. Write a summary sentence that really describes the page it is on (in 255 characters or less)

3. Write page content that is focused on

4. Write descriptive ALT text for all images that describes the concept the image illustrates and never use images for text

5. Build all pages to comply with current web standards observed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Only once your web pages comply with the above standards should you start more advanced SEO techniques, including keyword targeting, 301 redirects, link building (getting more links to your site), RSS news feeds, blogs, and SEO-specific metrics and tracking.

4. The Pay-Per Click Advertising

Pay-per click advertising helps you get more traffic from search engines through advertising in search engine results. You pick terms that people search on. You bid a price per click on your ad that you are willing to pay. You ad shows up when someone searches on that term, and, if you’re lucky, they click on your ad and come to your website.

So, pay-per click advertising really boils down to 3 components:

1. Picking keywords to advertise on (i.e. target keywords)

2. Determining what to bid for those target keywords

3. Writing copy for the ads that show up when people search

Picking keywords is all about knowing what terms your customers, clients, etc. would use when searching for your product or service. There are several tools to help you generate ideas. The best tools also check to see how many searches-per-month your target keywords receive. You typically want to find keywords that generate a lot of searches every month, but are focused enough for your business.

Determining what to bid for your keywords can be a highly-scientific process, sometimes managed by complex software and several key metrics. To keep it simple, let a tool like Google Adwords Traffic Estimator recommend to you what to bid at first. Start there, and start small. Your best bet is to lock-in a low daily budget limit until you are comfortable with the impressions your ads are getting, the flow of traffic from the ads to your website, and what those people do once they get to your website.

Writing ad copy comes down to writing a headline that people will click on, and creating compelling copy below that headline/link that will get people to click.

Headlines are best created by following what magazine covers do: focus on getting attention through eye-catching, short phrases. Using words like best (i.e. “Best Tips for a Summer Barbeque”), ultimate (i.e. “Ultimate National Park Vacations”) and number-based lists (i.e. “Top 5 Hybrid Cars for 2006”) have all been proven to work.

Writing effective ad copy below the title/link is really about reinforcing the term(s) search for. This means using the keywords in the ad copy, and starting the copy with an action verb.

By following the tips above, you can create an effective search engine marketing strategy for your online business. Focus on what matters most for your business when executing your plans.