Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
remember your client
s microsite, they need to be told it exists, and
they need some sort of vehicle to drive them there. The topic of
this chapter deals with the step that takes place before the users
'
'
interaction with, or even knowledge of, the site.
There are several ways to get your client
s potential customers
to visit their site. Some of those ways cost a little money and some
of them are completely free. In this chapter, I
'
ll cover several
options to drive traffic to your microsite and those options will be
spread across the following sections:
'
Paid Search
Banner Ads
From Main to Micro
Viral Marketing and Social Networking
User Interactions and Referrals
Paid Search
One of the most valuable ways to drive users to a Flash microsite is
by way of a paid search. In a nutshell, you
re actually purchasing
words and terms in a search engine such as Yahoo! or Google.
When people do a search for those words, your microsite is dis-
played in the results. While your site may also find its way into the
results based on unpaid (or natural) search terms, this takes time.
And because many microsites usually have a limited life span, time
is something that may be against you here.
Another advantage that paid search has over natural search is
guaranteed placement. By purchasing search terms, you are ensur-
ing your client a spot in the search results that they may not get by
means of natural placement. As for how high in the results your
client
'
Inside Advertising
When you are choosing
which search terms to
purchase, be sure to keep
the list relevant to the
industry, client, and site.
If your client is in the
automobile industry, it
wouldn
s microsite is placed, each search engine determines its rank-
ing differently. Although some search engines actually base the
placement on who paid more for a given search term, others have
formulas they use to determine the order of the results. One exam-
ple is that a search engine may take into account how much was
paid for the search term, but they also look at the click-through
rate for each placement. By figuring in how many people were
clicking on a placement after searching for a particular term, the
results are more accurate and relevant to the term itself. That extra
bit of sorting can make all the difference of where your client
'
tmakemuchsense
to purchase a term like
“
'
waterslide
”
or
“
baseball.
”
Although those examples
are very clear, there are
terms that are less obvious
but just as irrelevant. On
top of being bad practice
and a potential waste of
advertising dollars, some
search engines will check
the relevancy of your terms
to make sure they are in
line with the advertised site.
'
ssite
ends up on the list of results.
Small Costs, Big Results
With costs starting at mere pennies per click on the larger search
engines, paid search consistently has the lowest cost per acquisition
of any outbound marketing you can do for a microsite outside of
