Right now, somewhere, a potential customer is searching for your products. But, who will they find first – your company or your competitors? Search engine marketing is all about getting in front of prospects at the moment they are searching for your capabilities on Google.

But how do you take full advantage of search engine marketing and outshine your competition? The following tips will put you on the path to search engine marketing success.

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Choose the Best Keyword Phrases
The most critical step in search engine marketing is selecting the most important keyword phrases for your company. If you do not perform this step properly, your search engine marketing campaign is destined for failure.

When choosing the best keywords, it is critical to choose phrases that are relevant to your business and searched most often by your customers. Begin by getting inside the heads of your customers and brainstorm about potential terms your customers use when thinking about your products. Ask your salespeople, customer service people and best customers what phrases they think are most important. Then, turn to keyword research tools like Wordtracker or Google Adwords’ Keyword Tool to create a list of highly searched terms that will drive targeted traffic to your Web site.

Make Your Web site Attractive to Google
Now that we know your most important keywords, let’s put them to work. You need to make sure your Web site content and coding is optimized to take advantage of these phrases. Begin with your Web site copy – the information people can read on your site. Make sure you skillfully write your copy to effectively market your company, while using your important keywords in a relevant fashion.

Next, focus on your Web site structure – the code under the hood of your Web site that search engines see when they visit. Use your keyword phrases in page title tags, heading tags, director names, file names, alt tags and meta tags. Please note: while the ‘keywords’ meta tag is no longer relevant, the ‘description’ meta tag is very important. This description will show up in the search results below your link, providing a great opportunity to entice the searcher to visit your Web site.

Attract Quality Links to Your Web site
Link building involves gaining links to your Web site from other relevant and popular Web sites. The more quality inbound links you have, the more popular your Web site is in the eyes of Google. And, these links can have a dramatic effect on your search ranking.

A good place to start is to make your Web site content link-worthy. Good content attracts links, so fill your Web site with enlightening content such as best practices articles or a blog about trends in your industry. Next, get your Web site listed in online directories. Look first to important directories within your industry. Then, focus on general purpose directories like Business.com. You can also garner links from vendors, business partners and trade associations. Finally, leverage online public relations and distribute press releases and articles online. By consistently applying these link building strategies, you will dramatically boost your link popularity and your ranking on Google.

Run a Results-focus Paid Search Campaign
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) in the sponsored links section of the search results offers a compelling ROI-driven marketing opportunity. Unlike traditional advertising, where you ‘pay for exposure’ regardless of the results, with PPC you are not paying to be listed in the search results. You only pay if someone clicks on your ad and visits your Web site, providing a compelling ‘pay for performance’ mode of advertising. To manage an ROI-driven PPC campaign, first, bid on the most relevant keywords. Don’t pick terms based on popularity. Make sure your offering will be of interest to the searcher. Second, tie your bidding strategy to results. Think cost-per-lead and cost-per-sale, instead of just cost-per-click. Finally, include a compelling ‘call to action’ in the ad and send traffic to a relevant landing page tied to the ad. A compelling and relevant offer will help lift response and boost your ROI.

Measure Your Search Engine Marketing Success
As with all marketing activities, you must measure success to judge your past performance, as well as identify strategies to improve your results in the future. Since search engine marketing is all about attracting targeted traffic, begin by leveraging Web analytics to monitor traffic increases from search, as well as the phrases peoples are using to visit your Web site.

To make sure the volume of visitors continues to increase, you should also monitor your ranking in the search results. On a regular basis, check your position in the search engines for your keyword phrases to see that you are trending toward a top 10 ranking. Finally, to measure success of your PPC advertising efforts, harness the measurable nature of the Web to track the cost-per-visit, cost-per-lead, and cost-per-sale for your PPC ads.

If you are interested in learning more about the steps to search engine marketing success, visit www.svmsolutions.com/sem and download SVM’s free Search Engine Marketing Guide.

Bob DeStefano, president of SVM E-Business Solutions, is an online marketing strategist and professional speaker with over 15 years experience helping industrial companies leverage online marketing to produce bottom-line results. He can be reached by calling 1-877-786-3249 x3 or on the Web at www.svmsolutions.com.