July/August 2005
Step-by-Step: Search engine marketing

Five steps to help potential attendees and exhibitors find your show by improving your ranking on major search engines
By Dawn J. Grubb

1. Get inside your customer’s head
Search engines are all about key words and phrases. It’s essential to know which ones your exhibitors and attendees will be searching with so that you can incorporate them into your site.

Brainstorm key words and phrases customers might use to find information related to your show.

Test the key words using a keyword selector tool like that found on Yahoo!’s Overture (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/). This tool shows how often searchers are using a particular keyword phrase and suggests alternatives.

Common industry terms such as expo, show and exhibition can mean different things to different people. A keyword selector tool may confirm that people are searching with these key words, but those people may be looking for a different type of exhibition than yours.

2. Study search engines and how they work
Most search engines are crawler-based, meaning they continually “crawl” the Web cataloguing site content behind the scenes. Each crawler-based engine has its own algorithm to produce its rankings. There’s no way to know exactly when or how often Web crawlers will visit your site. When you make changes to your site — such as changing page titles or adding copy — they’ll eventually be picked up by the crawlers, and it could affect the way you’re listed.

Human-powered directories are another type of search engine. These directories use site descriptions provided by site owners to produce their rankings. Since these directories only look at the descriptions submitted, making changes to your site won’t affect your ranking.

3. Tweak your site for improvement
While there’s no magic formula to catapult your site’s ranking to the top of every search engine, there are things you can do to help engines find it and catalogue it to your advantage. Remember:

• Key words should be key. It’s essential that search phrases appear in the text of your Web pages. And placing key words near the top of the page is best because search engines view them as more relevant.

• Make titles count. Besides scouring the text on each page, crawlers also look at page titles. Integrating key phrases into every page’s title will increase the chance that your audience finds you. Every page can be coded differently to broaden your searchability.

• Don’t overdo design. Flashy graphics may look cool, but crawlers can’t read them. If key search phrases (such as your company’s name) are embedded in graphics, make sure they also appear in the page’s text.

• Remember link building. Search engines are more likely to rank your site high if other sites link to it. But not just any link will
do — crawlers are smart enough to ignore bogus links or those from low-quality sites. Encourage exhibitors to link to your site.

4. Invest wisely
While it’s possible to achieve high rankings without dropping a dime, it may take weeks for crawlers to find your Web site “naturally” and even months for such strategies as link building to boost your rankings.

If you need results sooner, consider paying the $300 fee to be listed in Yahoo!’s human-compiled directory (https://ecom.yahoo.com/ dir/submit/intro/) for a year. Being listed in Yahoo is one of the best links your site can have and will improve the chances that a crawler finds you faster.

Also consider pay-per-click searches, which list “sponsored” or “featured” results from companies that have paid for a prominent listing. Two popular pay-per-click providers are Google’s AdWords and Yahoo!’s Overture. Although many Web-savvy searchers hold unpaid or “natural” results in higher regard, many marketers use paid-per-click listings to guarantee immediate prominent placement for specified key word searches.

5. Monitor results
After weeks of planning and tweaking, your site now ranks in the top 10. Now you can check “search engine marketing” off your to-do list and move on, right? Wrong. Keeping a stellar ranking requires routine monitoring and tweaking.

Periodically test your key phrases. Are you still getting ranked high? If your competitors rank higher, study their sites to find out what they’re doing differently.

Maintenance is a continual circle — you must constantly track, analyze and optimize. This takes time and money. Ask how much of both you’re willing to invest to meet your objective. How high do you want to be ranked and on what?

Consider hiring a third party. Prices vary greatly depending on your needs. But be warned: Just like any business, there are great companies out there and others that will promise high rankings and not deliver. Do your research, get referrals, and make an informed decision.

Monitor referral sites. It will be hard to track how many visitors become actual exhibitors or attendees, but if you’re generating adequate or increasing traffic from search engines, then you’re likely reaping a return on your time and financial investment.