Case Study: How SEM Increased Direct Sales and Web Traffic in a Crowded Market

Breakout presentation #2 – sponsored by ClickZ and focused around the results Clarisonic obtained by honing in on their interactive efforts, specifically through organic and paid search.  This was a fairly high-level overview, but another good example of how you can achieve maximum ROI through hand-in-hand SEO/PPC efforts - remember my post last year about this?  I’ll stand on that soap box all day!

A few takeaways (again these are somewhat top-level but a fantastic overview of the integral factors in your Search Marketing program)—

The 5 “Pillars”

1. Keyword Strategy
   1. Use keyword expansion tools
   2. Competitive Analysis
   3. Target customer terminology
   4. Analyze your data
   5. Use the stages of the sales cycle
2. Site Content – keyword rich content, lots of synonyms, lots of relevant internal links
3. Meta Content – Page titles, descriptions, content
4. URL’s – relevant subfolder names
5. Inbound Links
   1. Links need to lead to relevant content (not just the home page)
   2. Stick to about 20 links/month

For their PPC efforts, I found it interesting that they took the “more is more” approach and tested 10,000+ paid keywords.  Results were 268% increased conversions and -65% cost per sale.

Noteworthy…

• Start optimizing before you make changes or release new products.  Stay ahead of the curve.
• Stay on the “pulse” of the keyword trends
• SEO/PPC together is the most cost-efficient way to get better ROI