ibm.com © 2005 ibm corporation big site/big company sem search engine strategies, new york march 3,...

ibm.com

© 2005 IBM Corporation

Big Site/Big Company SEM

Search Engine Strategies, New York

March 3, 2005

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ibm.com


What makes a big Web site so hard to work with?

Multiple specialist teams

Multiple product sites

Multiple audiences

Multiple countries

Multiple technologies

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ibm.com


ibm.com is a large, complex corporate Web site

83 countries, 31 languages

Thousands of products

Large, medium, small business, and consumer audiences

Many “cooks” for the broth:

User Experience: overall look and feel

IT: Portlets and operations

Product owners, copy editors, graphics designers: information about offerings

Marketing: audience-based messages and promotions

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ibm.com


Big sites are impervious to changes for SEM

Difficult to diagnose what is wrong

Very hard to get everyone to do the same thing

Technology changes are often very costly

Every change requiresapprovals and “processes”)and takes a very long time

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ibm.com


But big sites have advantages as well

Much easier to get links, although they may be to the home page

Well-known brands draw many more clicks from searchers

More people that can do thework, if motivated

If you use “processes” toyour advantage, you canuse the system againstitself

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ibm.com


Search marketing must meet your site’s goals

Learn

Buy

Shop

Use

Get

Search

Some sites lead to offline activity

Online PC Sales?

SearchConsulting?

Le

Learn

EngageSelect

Collabora

te

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ibm.com


Use metrics to show the value of search marketing

How many search visitors come to buy?

The right search result puts the visitor in the “Learn” stage to view a product page.

How many customers that view a product page put items in their carts?

And how many check out?

Multiply by your average revenue and you have the impact of search on revenue.

Learn

Buy

Shop

Use

Get

Search

You must justify the resources you will need for a big site program

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ibm.com


Explain the value of keyword planning

Pick the must-win keywords and the landing page for each one

Stopping bidding wars between business units in paid search might justify your program by itself

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ibm.com


Start a centralized search marketing program

Your central team handles everything you need to do in one place in your organization

But their most important job is working with your extended team—all of those specialists that already run your Web site:

Copy writers

Product managers

IT folks

etc.

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ibm.com


Training the extended team is the main job

Explain why search is important—they all want the site to be successful and they all search themselves

The specialists on your extended search team need different training in their ownlanguages:

Copy writers: Keyword rich

Product Managers: Keywords

IT folks: Spider traps

etc.

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ibm.com


Analyze your organizational structure

Corporate HQ

Company B

Company C

CompanyA

Corporate HQ

Country B

Country C

Country A

Corporate HQ

Product B

Product C

ProductA

Corporate HQ

Sales

Service

Marketing

Product-Oriented

Multinational

Functional

Conglomerate

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ibm.com


Decide what tasks you must centralize

Task Functional Product-Oriented

Multinational Conglomerate

Targeting search engines

Central Central Extended Central

Planning keywords

Central Extended Extended Central

Reporting metrics

Central Central Central Extended

Defining standards

Central Central Central Extended

Organization type influences the right place for each task

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ibm.com


Big sites can rank well in organic search

Start at the “bottom”

Get your pages indexed

Your links will get you to thetop of the rankings

Your brand name draws clicks

…if you can just optimizethat pesky content

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ibm.com


Use the big company management system

Change existing standards

Use the existing compliance system to enforce those standards

What processes do you have?

Project reviews

Promotion checkpoints

Legal review

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ibm.com


Fix your infrastructure to get your pages indexed

Set standards to control spider traps:

Ban frames, pop-ups, JavaScript links, etc.

Regulate Flash, cookies, dynamic pages

Correct robots directives

Redirect pages properly

Enforce standards withexisting processeswhenever possible

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ibm.com


Enforce search-friendly coding templates

Modify authoring processes to foster best practices

Currently #1 of 1.4 million results

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ibm.com


Use internal scorecards to improve results

Score each business unit every month and publicize the results internally

Keyword Google Rank MSN Rank Yahoo Rank AOL Rank AlltheWeb Ask Rankkeyword 1 1,2 58 1 1,2 1,2 100keyword 2 1,2,6 70 1,5 1,2,6 1,2,6 29keyword 3 1,2 45 1 1,2 1,2 65keyword 4 1,2 3 1 1,2 1,2,10 4keyword 5 3,4 2 2 3,4 3,4 1keyword 6 18 13 16 20 18 18keyword 7 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 1,2,3,4,5 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 1,2,3keyword 8 3,4 4,6 3 3,4 4,5 12keyword 9 1,2,10 1,2,3 1,9 1,2,10, 1,2,10 2,4keyword 10 1,9,10 100 1,7 1,9,10 2,3,4 50keyword 11 2,3,4 0 2,3 2,3,4 0 0keyword 12 1 100 1 1 1 0keyword 13 1,2 20 1 1,2 1,2 47keyword 14 10 100 9 10 27 100keyword 15 8 100 11 7 7 100

Keywords with Top 10 Rankings 14 5 13 14 12 4With KW List Size Factor 0.933333333 0.333333333 0.866666667 0.93333333 0.8 0.26666667With Browser Share Factor 0.466666667 0.033333333 0.086666667 0.09333333 0.08 0.02666667Number of Top 10 Rankings 34 12 20 34 31 7

Unit: XX URLs: URL1, URL2, URL3Search Engine Brand Unit Scorecard Worksheet

Current Missed CurrentKeyword Monthly Annual Visits Visits 10% 25% Google Rank

Keyword 1 59,130 709,560 591 58,539 5,913 14,783 25Keyword 2 41,580 498,960 416 41,164 4,158 10,395 45Keyword 3 40,050 480,600 401 39,650 4,005 10,013 22Keyword 4 31,560 378,720 316 31,244 3,156 7,890 88Keyword 5 23,700 284,400 237 23,463 2,370 5,925 120Keyword 6 19,860 238,320 199 19,661 1,986 4,965 75Keyword 7 12,660 151,920 127 12,533 1,266 3,165 46Keyword 8 7,740 92,880 77 7,663 774 1,935 82Keyword 9 6,210 74,520 62 6,148 621 1,553 38Keyword 10 1,230 14,760 12 1,218 123 308 98

Total Searches/Visitors 243,720 2,924,640 2,437 241,283 24,372 60,930

Results Current 10% 25%

Visitors 2,437 24,372 60,930

# Leads @ 10% Conversion 244 2,437 6,093

Increased Traffic Potential

Estimated Searches Potential

Track titles, broken links, search rankings,

traffic, and conversions

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ibm.com


With everything fixed, links will put you on top

Big sites attract links

Use site maps to attract huge PageRank that you can fan out to your interior pages

Get partners to link to your interior pages

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ibm.com


IBM’s program has yielded strong results

Spider traps removed from infrastructure so pages are indexed

Over two million pages in Google

Centralized keyword planning eliminated paid bidding wars

Over 1000 terms in top 10

Over 15% of all page views now come from search

Pilot projects have improved conversion over 50%

Keyword Ranking

Traffic from Search

Conversions

Pages Indexed

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ibm.com


Coming this summer

Manage a search marketing program in your company

Develop a strategy that supports your Web site’s goals

Get conversions, not just rankings

Execute your program step by step

For more information:www.mikemoran.comwww.globalstrategies.com/resources/book.html

ibm.com


Big Site/Big Company SEM

Mike MoranManager, Site Architecture and Designibm.com, Sales & DistributioneMail: [email protected]

Bill HuntPresident/CEOGlobal Strategies InternationaleMail: [email protected]

Available online -- www.globalstrategies.com/nyc

ibm.com © 2005 ibm corporation big site/big company sem search engine strategies, new york march 3,...

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