Can you live on the beach for a $1 day? Can you buy a brand new Rolls Royce for $10?
Probably not, but when it comes to search engine marketing, many businesses have the impression that they can spend a little money and take over the entire internet marketplace. It is important in any area of businesses to set a realistic marketing strategy based on your budget.

Let’s start with your search engine marketing budget. How much money will your business allocate to your search engine marketing strategy? What type of return is your business expecting to get from these advertisements? Many times businesses do this backwards and come up with a search engine marketing strategy that will cost $25,000 a month to execute, but their budget can only support a $5000 monthly budget.  Once your business determines a budget, then it is appropriate to think about the strategy.

The search engine marketing strategy ought to include the overall goal and then steps on how to reach your goals. Make sure to set realistic goals. Sometimes, companies look at competitors 10 times their size and say, “I want to do everything they are doing.” That won’t work because their budget is probably 10 times greater than yours. However, if your business will set reasonable goals and pace itself, then results can come quickly; which will allow your business to expand its reach and increase the marketing budget.

Part of setting realistic goals is realizing that your business shouldn’t bid on every keyword that is related to your business. Focus your keywords on your top products and/or services.  It is not practical to run 6 campaigns with each one containing 25 keywords, and each campaign set at a $5 daily budget.  Even if each keyword has an average cpc of $0.20, based on your daily campaign budget each keyword could only get one click and then your campaigns would be shut off for the day.  However, if your business runs 2 campaigns, with each one containing 15 keywords and each campaign set at a $15 daily budget, using the same avg cpc of $0.20; each keyword could get at least 5 clicks each. This would give your keywords more frequency and the opportunity for even greater reach which would benefit your business.

Every business should determine their budget before they start thinking about a grandiose strategy. By putting a budget in place, and working your strategy around your budget, a business may reach their goals quicker than expected. It’s always good to think practically when setting a search engine marketing strategy. It’s better to be pleasantly surprised than sadly disappointed.

A California federal appeals court recently ruled that bidding on competitor keywords and trademark terms is not a violation of trademark law. According to the court, since Google and Bing have partitioned their SERPs so that the advertisements appear in separately labeled sections for “sponsored links”, a consumer will not be misled by a company using a rival’s trademark term to trigger a search ad.

This recent ruling opens the door for marketers to have more opportunities in pay-per-click campaigns. It has become standard practice in recent years for brands to bid on competitor’s trademarks and include the terms in ad copy in pay-per-click ads.

So this leads to the question of whether your competitors are bidding on your name and trademark terms. The answer is most likely, yes. This highlights the importance of bidding on your brand and trademark terms. If you are not showing up for your brand terms, it is most likely that your competition is, and you could be losing out on valuable, qualified traffic to your site.

In order to have your pay-per-click ads stand out against your competition, you can use terms like “official site” and “authentic” so that visitors know that they are getting to the correct web site.

Alternatively, when bidding on competitor names and trademark terms, it is advantageous to include discounts and/or special promotions to steer visitors to your site instead of the competitor the user was originally searching for.

Let the bidding games begin.

Companies are always looking for ways to expand their business and reach new customers. One way to reach new customers via search engine marketing is to expand your search engine marketing campaigns to other countries. However, it is imperative to do your homework in order to be successful.

The first step is to find out which countries are currently benefitting your company. Google analytics is a helpful tool that can show which countries to potentially geo-target. Although your current campaign may only be geo-targeted nationally, Google analytics will show your company where good organic leads and orders are coming from internationally. Once it has been determined which countries make sense, you should add them to your campaigns.

It’s not enough to add a new country to your geo-target settings and forget it. It’s wise to know several basic items about that country.  First, know the seasons of that country. Although it may be winter in your home country it may be summer time elsewhere. It’s imperative that your ad copy, keywords and website portray the correct message. Either keep them neutral or make the necessary adjustments to target them correctly.

Next, know the language. Make sure to change your language settings to include the main language of that country. With today’s technology, many people can use a tool to translate your company’s website into their own language. Therefore, it’s important to include their language in the language setting of your search engine marketing campaign. 

 Next, understand payment methods. It is good to use a third party payment site like Google Checkout if your company isn’t setup to handle currency conversions.  Your company can have a real mess on its hands if you aren’t equipped to handle currency conversions, not to mention this could present a potential negative image with the new customers you are trying to establish a relationship with.

A company who is looking to grow their business and reach out to new customers should look into adding more countries into their geo-target settings. However, please remember it’s not as simple as clicking a button. Research should always be done to determine the best strategy for reaching new customers in new countries.