CCT356: Online Advertising and

MarketingClass 5:

Search Engine Optimization/Marketing

AdministrationArticles..First assignment (online ad critique)? Due next

week! Reminder on campaign/ads and online nature

Search Engines – A Brief History

Major wayfinding device for Internet Early days of Internet – Yahoo! and others as

browsing portals, similar to library categorization = unsustainable model

Altavista and others – limited full-text search, unclear and biased results

Google’s revolution – crowded out browsing based options and less sophisticated search engines

Now Google and limited alternatives (e.g., Bing)

Strategic ConsiderationsSearches are goal-oriented – searchers want

what you have to offerVisibility is key – hardly anyone goes to page 2

(or more)Trust in organic search results – first options are

perceived to be good Search as gateway – many people have search

embedded in browser or as homepage

MechanicsSpider – goes out to find pages to add to indexIndex – a cache of all pages spidered, on which

search terms correlate with (implications?)Engine – runs massive eigenvector centrality

measure (among 200+ other factors at Google) on search terms vs. index to generate results

Search ResultsPaid placement – highlighted results based on

payment (Google’s revenue model)Organic – “earned” placement based on

relevance to search termsTwo different strategies – one paid but more

guaranteed, one free but based on strategic value

SEM = SEO+PPC

SEO vs PPCSEO

Long term ROI Nature exposure,

potential for high volume Difficult to quantify/track

results Requires ongoing content

generation Prone to changes in

engine rules

PPC Easy to set up ads Measureable and

trackable Can leapfrog SEO sites Expensive Can lead to bidding wars

Google as Integrated Search

Search among Google platforms – not just pages, but maps, images, videos, etc.

Even more tight integration to come with recent changes in Google privacy policy – one policy for all services = tighter integration and linking (for better or worse?)

SEO historySpider index page content and metadataQuick realization that some tags/words would

enhance placement – and good writing would lead to high placement (e.g., Sheridan example)

“White hat” SEO – creating quality content gets you results (e.g, the Oatmeal)

“Black hat” SEO – a dishonest attempt to game the search engine (examples?)

Reaction of engines – why does Google care about black hat techniques?

SEO friendly infrastructureWhat do spiders access?What *can’t* they access?Page design should be as much (or more!) about

what the spider sees vs. human audiences

ConsiderationsUse alt tags – good for both accessibility and

SEOTitle pages intelligently and obviouslyCreate user-friendly URLs for landing pages<meta> = less keywords (overabused) and

more descriptionFlash, Applet, image-based text = not spider-

friendlyContent behind firewall = same.

Key PhrasesWhat are users searching for regarding your

product/service?Engines increasingly sophisticated re: guessing

synonyms, misspellings, etc…and Google Suggest helps as well

Know your scope – “hotel” is pointless (without geolocational-filtered searching)

Know your audience - “luxury Cape Town hotel” and “budget Cape Town hotel” – two audiences, likely mutually exclusive

ConsiderationsSearch volume – what are common words?Competition – what may be words common to

other sites?Propensity to convert – if someone find your site

via a keyword, are they likely to click through? Buy something?

Generating keywordsBrainstorm – from an empathetic point of view!Look at referral logs and search terms already

usedSurvey users

Keyword OptimizationFree tool:

https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&__o=kt&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS (horrible URL!)

What comes up with various searches?

Link NetworksEarly PageRank – relevance of other’s opinions

of page importantLed to link farms – people creating pages of links

that themselves had little relevance – and link trading for the sake of link trading (also little relevance)

Also behind comment spam on blogs (why rel=“nofollow” was introduced)

Building solid link networks

Create a personal connection – from the emotive to the entertaining

Create documents that are earnestly usefulAnalyze existing link networks (yours and

competitors) through link: searches

Looking at usage dataHow are people looking at your page already?Examining search terms used to get to your

page can be helpful (…or not?)

Social SearchIncreasingly relevant (esp. with Google

integration?)Are pages with multiple likes/+1s more relevant

– likely, even if not admitted yet to be so (even nofollow URLs through Twitter can be relevant)

Social media marketing can fuel search engine optimization as a result (again with Oatmeal – every post = thousands of likes)

Mobile considerationsDesign for different platformsForce platform choice? (e.g., Toronto Star’s iPad

page)Leveraging geolocational information? E.g.,

compatible information in Foursquare, etc.

Avoiding black hat techniques

Hidden text/linksDishonest redirectsKeyword overloadDuplicate content and landing zonesAvoid link farmsAvoid being targeted as spam/phishing scheme

In the end…Creating quality content will get you further than

gaming the system Similar to questions of plagiarism in school – the

shortcuts usually don’t pay off as much as hard work, and the potential downside is huge

Be wary of SEO optimizers promising big things – they tend to use black hat techniques (why?)

Next weekPam Shaw on marketing strategy – a good

framework for final project, so pay attention!