To optimize your performance with the search engines you must be able to strike a balance with both Paid Programs and Free Listings for search engine marketing.

Someone once said search engine marketing is much like playing 3-D chess - it’s very complex and multi-dimensional. In order for you to win you have to not only select the right keywords and match them up with the right content but that content must match the searchers desired target as well as select the right search vehicle for each of your keywords.

You as a marketer must determine the value of long-term results that you’ll obtain from the search engines against the short-term results of paid advertising. Typically the right answer is striking a perfect balance between the both of them.

Don’t let anyone convince you that free listings do not generate traffic. The fact is I have found that the top 2 free listings generate more than 50% of the clicks I receive. Numbers like that you just can’t ignore. They present you with too large a market to be ignored. However, paid searches bring you the most targeted clicks.

Having mentioned all this should lead you to see clearly now that striking a balance between the both of them will yield the greatest return on your investment with regards to your search engine marketing efforts.

As you pursue traffic with the search engines keep in mind that you’ll need to implement some form of tracking to measure your results. There are several tools that will do the job of identifying what search engines and which keywords have brought you that traffic. You also want to make sure the tracking tool you select will reveal what the visitor has done online, including page visits, time spent, action taken and so on. You’ll have to establish a method of relating the traffic history to the revenue results.

Here are some tools that I recommend:

• DoubleClicks Dart
  
  Their paid placement and advertising ROI tracking tool generates web based reports on const per click, number of clicks, overall media costs, conversion rates, gross sales, return on investment (ROI), and net profit.

• WebTrends from NetIQ

They offer server based software to determine how many visitors are coming to the website, where they are coming from, what they’re doing on the website, and which search engines are sending the most traffic, along with which phrases are sending the most traffic.

• HitBox from WebSideStory

It uses a different data collection method by enabling site owners to add code to thier site. It tracks the same kind of information as the other tools mentioned.

Each one of these is an effective tracking tool for measuring your search engine marketing efforts.

Luis A. Castillo is an accomplished webmaster and affiliate marketer who has been effectively marketing online for over 3 years. For more information on setting up a successful website you can visit his site http://www.targeted-traffic-site-builder.com

Tags: free listings, generate traffic, paid listings, search engine marketing, search engines

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