The Search Engine Marketing Kit -- a hands on guide to SEM

Pandia takes a look at Sitepoint's new Search Engine Marketing Kit, an extensive guide to web site promotion by the use of search engines and pay per click advertising.

There are normally two reasons for buying a search engine marketing tutorial:

You would like to improve your site's search engine ranking by yourself. In that case the tutorial must give you enough up-to-date information to be helpful to you.

Or you would like to know much about the skills required to become a good search engine marketing customer, meaning that you would like to know what to expect from a search engine marketer, and the kind of services you should avoid.

Good search engine marketing guides manage to help both kinds of readers.

Sitepoint's search engine marketing kit

Sitepoint is an extensive web site giving out free advice to webmasters regarding everything from web design to search engine marketing. They normally know how to make complex issues understandable and doable. Hence we had great expectations when we started reading their new Search Engine Marketing Kit.

The author, Dan Thies, has been a search engine consultant since the turn of the century and is well known i search engine marketing circles. He is, for instance, a regular speaker at Danny Sullivan's US Search Engine Strategies conferences, and an executive member of SEOPros, the organization for search engine professionals. He should know what he is talking about.

And he does. The tutorial is well written, easy accessible for beginners and professionals alike and brings you a large amount of information.

This means that the only ones that will not find the kit interesting are those that (1) know more about search engine ranking and optimization than Dan does and (2) those that are looking for a very short "executive summary" kind of tutorial.

So what do you get? Well, this is a "kit", meaning that you get more than your regular downloadable ebook. Actually, the tutorial is not downloadable at all. You will have to wait for the package to arrive by old fashioned snail mail.

What you get is a large loose-leaf binder, a large number of printed sections to put into that binder as well as a CD-ROM.

A wide variety of topics

The binder or book is organized into seven chapters, all of which can be read independently of the others.

The chapters are:

1. Understanding search engines - a search engine technology primer.
2. Search engine optimization basics - on keyword strategies, page lay out and site structure.
3. Advanced SEO and search-engine friendly design - including web server issues, content management systems, domain management.
4. Paying to play: pay-per-click and paid inclusion - looking at Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and more.
5. Running a search engine marketing business - teaching you how to build your own search marketing company.
6. Interviews with search engine marketing professionals - including friends of Pandia: Andy Beal and Jill Whalen
7. Tools - including keyword research tools, submission services, browsers, PPC tools and services, web site statistics and more.

For beginners as well as professionals

We like the systematic approach of the book. Thies takes the time needed to make sure that the reader understands the basic concepts used in SEM.

You cannot discuss, let alone practice, search engine marketing, unless you know the difference between organic listings, directory listings and sponsored results. Readers who already know the basics, can use this part of the text to teach colleagues struggling to understand what SEM is all about.

By starting out explaining how search engine actually gather and present data, Thies also makes it easier for beginners to understand how you can influence search engine rankings, also when it comes to more advanced techniques including, for instance, server management.

Thies also takes a closer look at spam techniques. His arguments against the use of cloaking are clear and convincing.

(By the way, Alan Perkins' white paper on the classification of search engine spam is included as an appendix.)

On running your own SEM business

What makes this tutorial different from some search engine marketing guides, is the fact that it includes topics that goes beyond regular organic search engine optimization. There is, for instance, a separate chapter on pay per click text ads.

There is also a chapter on how to run your own search engine marketing business. That's a first, as far as we know.

As Thies points out, the current boom in search engine marketing represent a tremendous opportunity for Web professionals, and he gives you close to 40 pages with practical advice.

Whether this book will teach you enough to start your own SEM business is another matter. You must definitely learn some more about general business practices, if you haven't run a company before.

The CD-ROM

The CD-ROM contains practical templates for search engine marketing campaigns as well as for search engine marketing businesses. They are developed for software packages most people have available, in particular Microsoft Office software and Adobe PDF.

Anyone running a search engine marketing campaign can make use of the following:

1. SEM process flowchart
2. Keyword research worksheet
3. Link partnership tracker
4. Directory submission tracker
5. SEM project planner

In addition SEM consultants may find these interesting:

1. Client management form
2. SEM sales presentation
3. Site review checklist
4. SEM proposal sample
5. SEM service agreement sample
6. Rates, pricing and ROI calculator

There is also a free version of the Web CEO software included.

To conclude: If you are looking for a well written, extensive, guide to search engine marketing, this kit will give you what you are looking for. If you are planning to start your own SEM business, you should definitely read Thies' advice.

Go to the The Search Engine Marketing Kit home page

Download free chapter (Sitepoint requires that you give them your email address)

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HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS

The Web Design Business Kit

The PHP Anthology: Object Oriented PHP Solutions

Build Your Own ASP.NET Website Using C# & VB.NET