Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales (Voices That Matter) (Paperback)

by Catherine Seda (Author) "My experience using the internet as a marketing tool began with a class at UC San Diego in 1994..." (more)
Key Phrases: red mountain spa, click fraud, search engine marketers, Trusted Feed, Ask Jeeves, International Crystal Manufacturing (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

You don't have to have the biggest name or the most dazzling graphics to lure customers to your Web site. These days, all you really need is prominent search-engine placement. This book shows you how to get it! With searching one of the most popular Internet activities, a top spot on a major search engine virtually ensures a high volume of visitors--though converting them to buyers is another story. In these pages, top Internet marketer and strategist Catherine Seda tackles both parts of that equation. First, she outlines the strategy involved in buying the specific keyword positions that will lead users directly to the page you want. Then, she describes how you can turn poor-performing ad copy into targeted sales-getters, and how you can evaluate and correct low visitor-to-buyer conversions. Beginning marketers will find the info they need to implement a Web strategy quickly, while advanced marketers will find all kinds of tips for analyzing and improving current results.

About the Author
Catherine Seda is a popular speaker on the topics of search engine marketing, affiliate management, and low-cost web site promotion. She’s known for sharing practical tips and tools in her dynamic sessions at leading search engine, marketing, and industry association conferences. Since 1995, Catherine has worked with organizations in the U.S. and Europe to leverage the Internet as a marketing tool. As the marketing executive of a web agency for five years, she championed client online promotions that included search engine optimization, pay-per-click media buys, opt-in e-mail, banner advertising, link popularity campaigns, custom sweepstakes, and ROI tracking. She also designed the search engine program, which included co-creating an affiliate trademark protection strategy, for a direct response TV agency’s clients. Through her agency, Seda Communication, Catherine offers open workshops and onsite training for search engine marketing. Additionally, she leads a team of search engine specialists in managing corporate client campaigns.

Catherine shares revenue-generating techniques in her articles as a regular columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine, editor of the Search Engine Sales e-zine, and freelance writer for industry publications including Response Magazine, SearchDay (Search Engine Watch), LookSmart, Pay Per Click Analyst, FindWhat.com, and others. She’s also a contributing author of Search Engine Positioning.

Catherine believes in a "test before you invest" Internet marketing strategy for immediate and long-term success.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press (March 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735713995
• ISBN-13: 978-0735713994
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #527,421 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent companion to "Search Engine Visibility", May 30, 2004

By	Manny Hernandez "Author of Ning For Dummies" (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

Catherine Seda's excellent book "Search Engine Advertising" is the perfect complement to Shari Thurow's "Search Engine Visibility" from which includes an excerpt toward the end. Where Thurow's book, the best one in terms of accomplishing high rankins in 'organic' (read unpaid) search results, Seda's book brings along the whole other side of the equation: that of paid options to accomplish high rankings. In doing so, one of her key points is that Search Engine Advertising doesn't end when the customer arrives at your site (visits), but it really is about conversions (getting the customer to make a purchase, subscribe or whatever your web site's purpose is when s/he arrives to it).

The book is very well structured around six parts:
i) Planning: the key (yet sometimes overlooked) part of the process, to ensure you know who you are targetting and how, before jumping into the paid options.
ii) Paid Placement Programs: she presents the differences (pros and cons) of the most important fixed placement and pay-for-placement programs available.
iii) Paid Inclusion Programs: directories are presented here in all their splendor, along with what you can do to enhance your possibilities before submitting your site, and how to manage a large number of simultaneous submissions. Web site optimization is touched upon briefly at this point, but in no way substituting Thurow's book on the topic: you simply have to have both, if you're serious about Online Marketing at all.

iv) Specialized Search Engines: comparison shopping engines, vertical market search engines and international search engines are discussed in some detail, to get you started with them.
v) Tracking ROI: normally just as overlooked as the planning stage, the tracking of the results of paid advertising campaigns are discussed in extensive detail to ensure that you are able to steer the boat in the right direction if your ROI data shows that you're putting money on the wrong key terms, your copy is not doing what it should to engage customers, or your landing pages are not taking customers where you want them to go once they get to your site.
vi) Protecting profits: topics such as click fraud, trademark infringement and affilate networks are discussed, as things to keep an eye on.

All in all, this is not a book you'd want to sit down and read in one afternoon (nor would you be able to). This is a hands-on book to work through and use as a reference as you're getting your feet wet with this whole other animal that is paid advertising on the Web. It has done a ton for me in the two months I've been applying the concepts contained in it, since it summarizes very well all the options available to you, their pros/cons and how to best take advantage of them, considering your size and budget. I highly recommend it without reserves for eMarketers that have not had too much exposure to paid options, as well as those who have some experience in the area, since it provides a wealth of tips and insights that most people in the field can benefit from.

Disclosure: I received a copy for review from the publisher.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Information on The Paid Side of Search Engine Marketing, March 16, 2004

By	A. M Wall "SEO Junkie..." (state college, pa United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Catherine primarily focuses this book on the paid side of search engine marketing. I am a search engine marketer and have generally worked on the "free" or optimization side of search engine marketing for the past year. I also have read at least a dozen books or ebooks on this subject.

Generally I think the return on the optimization side is much greater than on the paid side, but if you are a savy marketer using paid search engine marketing can bring rapid distributions and returns. I personally have been amazed at some of the high profile, high frequency search words which have few competitors on the market (even today.)

There is much to know about search engine marketing, and much of the info that is out there on either side (paid or optimization) is chuck full of misinformation. This book is new and kept general enough (covering a rapidly changing environment) to where there is not a bunch of misinformation. She even predicted that paid inclusion would go to a PPC model right before Yahoo! put the new system in place.

If you have enough money to be participating in paid search then this book could help you save some of it.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Outdated, outdated, outdated, April 4, 2006

By	R. McDaniel (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm sure this book was cutting edge when it was first published in February of 2004, but now it's for the most part outdated. For the absolute beginner to this area, there are some good general points, but references to long-since defunct or consolidated web companies (Urchin, Inktomi,etc) make it difficult to understand just what's still relevant. Google and Yahoo (and soon Microsoft) are defining the new landscape of this field as we speak...Try the new book from IBM press, "Search Engine Marketing"....chock full of the latest (as late as can be in this field) info.