Before developing any search marketing strategies to be used in digital marketing campaigns, it is important to first carry out elaborate research into the field. This will help you to acquire a better understanding of the landscape and the environment in which you work. As any digital marketing agency will tell you, elaborate research will arm you with good understanding of the competitive environment as well as the search marketplace.
There are two distinct fields that one should understand before developing a plan.
- 1. The behavior of searchers and their interests
You should find out the following information that relates to the interests and behavior of the searchers. A good digital marketing consultancy may provide you with tips on how to go about it.
- Are the users looking for information on the internet that relates to the products and services that you are offering?
- What is the specific kind of information that they are looking for?
- What are the patterns, if indeed any do exist, in the behavior of the searchers?
Among the tools that a good digital marketing agency would recommend are;
- Google insights- this is a free tool offered by Google and may help you to;
- Obtained detailed analysis of particular keywords
- Compare results by time range, search terms or locations
- Identify the most popular search terms at any time
- Filter results according to different categories
- Google trends- this is also a free tool that is provided by Google. It has the following advantages for its users
- Demonstrates the trends that the searches take over a given period
- Enables geo- location filtering
- For category keywords, it can estimate the relative volumes of searches
- Google Adwords Keyword tool- this is an additional free tool from Google. Its key advantages lie in the following;
- One can use a single term to generate a list of very many related queries
- Weighs historical search volumes thus quantifying them
- Aids one in building the first group of keywords to be used in Adwords
- It can graph the trends in search volumes
- Keyword research tools from Microsoft ad Center- these tools are also free and they are helpful in visually representing any association between searches posted in the same session, detecting and displaying similar keyword to the search term.
- 2. The competitive environment
It is important to find out the level of competition that exists in the market. You should also find out the SEO and SEM approaches adopted by competitors. One way of doing this is by visiting a reputable digital marketing consultancy.
Some of the free tools that can be used in this analysis include;
- Google Adwords
- Basic Spyfu
There are also a number of tools for which subscription is required. These include
- CumScore Marketer
- Compete.com’s search Analytics
Qudos Digital is a leading digital marketing consultancy, and can be contacted on 0845 388 5583 or info@qudosdigital.co.uk.