An Evenhanded Look at Search Tactics

There are many different aspects to search, ask any firm what search is, and you shouldn’t get a one sentence answer.

There is paid search, organic search, vertical search, local search and social search. There are feeds, logrolls, links, and any amount of other avenues by which people can find your site. You have to take advantage of all of them!

Develop a search strategy that involves all of these concepts. Don’t cut one or more out just because someone tells you ’paid search is bad’ or ’organic search is stupid’ or ‘social search is a waste of time’. Look at the whole picture.

That’s not to say the results don’t vary, but in the long run the immediacy is the only real dividing factor. Paid has immediate impact; organic takes time. Paid doesn’t exactly require a technical background; organic does need some technical knowledge.

Local search is used to find specific services. You might not just want a Holiday Inn, you want one with an indoor pool. Make sure you combine the value of locations, phone numbers, services offered, hours of operations, and reviews. This will add relevancy to your listing for brand searches and service-related searches.

SEO is finally getting the good word, as budgets shrink and marketers search for more low-cost strategies. SEO isn’t a one-time fix, but the costs associated with it are minimal compared to media or paid search. While there’s no exact formula for gauging the potential impact of SEO, it’s one of the best ways to grow natural search.

Social can be used for SEO benefit, but can also eat man hours in an unprecedented way. If you can go viral, go for it – if not, try to maintain a steady trickle of effort in this arena for long term results. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter can be enormously beneficial if handled correctly.

As long as you cross your ‘T’s’ and dot your ‘I’s’ you should do well with your new search strategies!