Unfortunately it can take time for a site to be ranked highly in search results even if it
is the index: Google reputedly places new sites in a ‘sandbox’ while assessing their rele-
vance due to previous efforts to distort its index by creating interlinking sites.Keyphrase analysis
The key to successful search engine marketing is achieving keyphrase relevance since
this is what the search engines strive for – to match the combination of keywords typed
into the search box to the most relevant destination content page. Notice that we say
‘keyphrase’ (short for ‘keyword phrase’) rather than ‘keyword’ since search engines such
as Google attribute more relevance when there is a phrase match between the keywords
that the user types and a phrase on a page. Despite this, many search companies and
commentators talk about optimising your ‘keywords’ and in our opinion pay insuffi-
cient attention to keyphrase analysis.
You can see from comparing Figure 8.15(a) with Figure 8.15(b) that some well-known
companies are visible for one search phrase, but not the other. Other companies which
have done the appropriate analysis are visible for both.
Key sources for identifying the keyphrases your customers are likely to type when
searching for your products include your market knowledge, competitors’ sites,
keyphrases from visitors who arrive at your site (from web analytics), the internal siteCHAPTER 8· INTERACTIVE MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
Figure 8.16Stages involved in creating a search engine listingSearch engine
Spider or robotSpider follows
links on siteSpider creates a list
of keywords and
their page locationsFlights
Tickets
Airline
Bargain
New York
London
ParisPage A, B
Page B
Page A, B, C
Page A
Page D
Page E
Page FIndexingIndex created based
on proprietary
weighting systemSearch
engineMain search engine
database updatedSearch engine user
types keywords and best
matches returnedSpider regularly visits
registered site