So, with the economy in a downturn, what are some possible tips for search marketers?
Have Clear Economic Targets– Determine how aggressively or how conservatively you should be advertising and stick to your numbers. Before throwing more money at generating traffic, make sure your pages have high conversion rates.
Shift Dollars Into The Strongest Channel–This may mean moving money into organic search. It may mean moving it into pay-per-click—or another medium! Now isn’t the time to maintain historic channel budget allocation simply because “we’ve always done it that way.”
Revisit Your Overall Marketing Strategy–Make sure that web site content and keywords reflect current market place conditions. Ensure that best practices are in place. For example, this might be a time that there are increased brand searches, as well as price/value messages.
Protect Your Bottom-Line–Don’t let revenue targets established a year ago drive decisions you’re making now.
Review Strategic Objectives–This might be the time for short-term ROI campaigns versus branding tactics.
Use Niche Marketing Tactics to Cut Costs: Focus Search Geographically–Instead of using search to build a broad national customer base, focus on local geographic areas (towns and cities) that are the highest concentration of your business sector. For example, Google local search emphasizes the nearest geographic center of the city. So, if you are a business that services the entire city, and your actual address isn’t relevant to your customers, then using a P.O. box near the the center of town is likely to improve SEO rankings. This strategy is not advised for restaurants or boutiques– businesses where physical proximity matters to its customers.
Maintain Search Presence–Targeted campaigns, even at highly reduced spending levels, are better than stopping SEO efforts, which are maximized over time.
Stay Calm–The American entrepreneurial spirit will prevail.
