Here’s a quick primer on the basics of search for busy executives in the Web 2.0 economy.

INTRO

Understanding search is easy. People want to find stuff using the internet - boats, doctors, facts. Seekers of information enter a search string, i.e “gigantic yacht” and the search engines display relevant results.

As a business person, you need to know how to get found.

ORGANIC AND PAID SEARCH

Search can be divided into two broad categories: organic and paid.

Organic search refers to the the results displayed by the search engines. Paid search are the sponsored listings which surround the organic results.

According to Forrester Report “U.S. Online Marketing Forecast: 2007-2012,” search engine marketing topped $8.05 billion in 2007 and is projected to grow to $25.3 billion within 5 years:

Organic search is determined by the search robots, complex programs that analyze your website for relevancy to a given search string. Here are a few basics to help your relevancy score in organic search:

1. Use the meta tags - these appear in the “head” section of your web page (visible when you select “view source code” in a browser). The tags that matter are KEYWORDS, TITLE AND DESCRIPTION. More than 50% of all websites leave the meta tags blank, depressing their results in search.
2. Be Honest, be Concise - imagine you have to explain your business to a robot (’cause that’s what you’re doing). Keep it simple; keep it focused.
3. Exact Word Matches Help - Remember, you’re talking to robots. “Doctor” does not equal “doctors.”

Paid search, also called pay-per-click, let’s you display your ad in response to keywords you select. You can define a geographic area, time of day, daily budget and test ad variations. You only pay when your ad is clicked. A good click-through rate is 10%.

The smaller the geography and the more narrow the keywords, the cheaper the cost of PPC advertising. Google AdWords includes a cost estimator and lots of other helpful tools to get started.

Every company should review its search strategy to make sure they are reaping the benefits of the Web 2.0 economy.