Search has changed everything. Search has become woven into our everyday lives, and permeates offline as well as online activities.

Every business should have a search strategy. How a business appears online can impact consumer influence as much as if not more than offline advertising like TV commercials. A business's search strategy can have a dramatic impact on how consumers interact with that business.

But even more importantly, search engine activity provides amazingly useful data about customer behavior, needs, and motivations. Accessing search data is like conducting focus groups with millions of people for free. Search isn't just for marketers and techies. It can provide valuable insight on business strategy and product strategy.

Companies of all sizes from startups to global enterprise level corporations, and even businesses without web sites can benefit from understanding how consumers are searching for them and talking about them online, both as a powerful acquisition channel and a vast repository of market research.

In this non-technical book forexecutives, business owners, marketers, and product managers, search engine strategy guru Vanessa Fox-who created Google's portal for site owners, Googgle Webmaster Central -explains what every marketer or business owner needs to understand about how search rankings work, how to use search to better understand your customers and attract new ones, how to develop a comprehensive search strategy for your business, and how to build execution of this strategy into the businesses processes. This isn't another book about paid search for advertisers. This book focuses on organic listings the unpaid results that receive 86% of searcher clicks.

• Written by search engine guru Vanessa Fox, formerly Google's search engine strategy spokesperson and creator of Google Webmaster Central
• Explains from a businessperson's perspective how to develop a successful search engine strategy
• Shows how to use the easily accessible data from search engines to increase qualified traffic, better understand customers, and strengthen customer relationships
• Reveals how smaller companies can leverage search engine marketing to achieve parity with larger brands

With this book in hand, every businessperson will have the knowledge and the tools to maximize the potential of search engine marketing to build a brand, draw new prospects, and generate sales.

In the age of Google, your customers are searching.

Will they find you?

In today's searching world, customers turn to online search engines first. Yet many companies simply don't realize acquiring customers from search engines should be a core business strategy. Instead, they usually focus on narrow goals, such as boosting page rankings. These oversights leave a huge channel for engaging with potential customers largely untapped. Businesses that use data about how people search to inform their product strategy will reach customers before the competition. Businesses that understand the importance of non-ad-based search acquisition will make it central to their marketing mix, and can connect with high-quality customers for long-term growth and success.

Marketing in the Age of Google is a practical guide to harnessing the full power of online search for your business. Written by former Google employee Vanessa Fox, who created Google's official portal for explaining online search to businesses, this clear, non-technical book demystifies search marketing and explains proven methods you can implement at your business today.

Not another book on AdWords campaigns, Marketing in the Age of Google instead focuses on making your business stand out in the "organic" searches that attract 86 percent of user clicks. Fox shows you where companies get hung up with rankings, and lays out a comprehensive approach for achieving the search goal that matters most: connecting with the people who want to find you.

You'll also discover how to:

• Integrate search strategy into all aspects of your business
• Cut through the data and get the actionable metrics you need
• Use data about what people are searching for as a valuable market research tool
• Get your company found through social media
• And more!

Whether you're a sole proprietor or you work for a major global brand, Marketing in the Age of Google will help you fully integrate search into your business and marketing activitiesand give you a major advantage over competitors.

PRAISE FOR Marketing in the Age of Google

"Former Googler Vanessa Fox has been educating people about the world of Google and search marketing for years. She thoughtfully guides marketers past jargon and technical distractionsto focus on the best ways to reach customers in today's 'searching' culture."
Danny Sullivan, Editor in Chief, Search Engine Land

"Vanessa Fox grabs your hand, shows you the way into the big black box of search marketing, and flips the lights on. You'll walk away from this book not only getting it when it comes to using search to build your business, but knowing how to do it."
Tamara Adlin, author of The Essential Persona Lifecycle

"This may be the first book that manages to identify and deconstruct the new search-engine-centricbusiness world in which we live. Highly recommended."
John C. Dvorak, columnist, MarketWatch and PC Magazine

"Finally! A nontechnical book about smarter search engine marketing. This is the search marketing bible for people looking to grow their business."
Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing

"Vanessa Fox has a fantastic perspective into the search marketplace. Her experience at Google and within the industry, combined with her ability to share those insights in nontechnical morsels, make this book a must-read for anyone in business."
Richard Zwicky, founder and President, Enquisite

Your search strategy can influence how consumers interact with your business. But, more importantly, how audiences use search engines provides critical data about customer behavior, needs, and motivations. This nontechnical book explains everything you need to know about search rankings, search data, and creating a search strategy that's deeply integrated into your business. This revised and updated edition includes the latest tools and changes to the search landscape. It now covers Google+ as well as Google's Panda algorithm, which has substantially changed how Google evaluates content quality.

This book is about the power of search, the overall search landscape, and how businesses can harness it to their full potential. Unlike other search-related books that are about tactical search engine optimization or paid search, this book will focus on being found in organic search results, using search data to better understand customers, and to deepen the customer engagement for greater customer lifetime value.

The book includes numerous case studies from easily recognizable companies as well as direct conversations with the major search engine representatives (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live Search) and the smaller niche engines (such as Spock, Wink, hakia, and Nexplore).

Key Selling Features

• Traditional marketing isnt enough anymore. Businesses need to evolve as customer behavior evolves
• Organic search is a free customer acquisition channel (and thus, doesn't dry up when you stop spending)
• Search isn't a scattershot approach; you can target your ideal audience who has purchasing intent
• Search is measurable, unlike many other marketing channels
• 86% of search clicks are on organic results and yet only 14% of spend is on organic. A slight shift in spend (from paid search to organic) could substantially increase qualified traffic.
• Offline marketing efforts drive organic search queries, and by not capitalizing on those queries, much of those marketing efforts goes wasted

Updates to this revised edition include:

• Updated statistics, tools, and recommendations related to Google's new interface
• Explanation on impact of search rankings in relation to Google's changes to their search algorithm, know as "Panda"

Search has changed everything. Has your business harnessed its full potential?

A business's search strategy can have a dramatic impact on how consumers interact with that business. But even more importantly, search engine activity provides amazingly useful data about customer behavior, needs, and motivations. In this non-technical book for executives, business owners, and marketers, search engine strategy guru Vanessa Foxwho created Google's portal for site owners, Google Webmaster Centralexplains what every marketer or business owner needs to understand about search rankings, search data, comprehensive search strategies, and integrating your strategy into the businesses processes.

• Updated statistics, tools, and recommendations
• Details about the latest changes from Google, Bing, and the overall search landscape
• Explanation and recommendations related to Google's substantial new search algorithm, know as "Panda"
• Discussion of the changing landscape of the integration of search and social media, including the addition of Google+ to the mix

Traditional marketing isn't enough anymore. Businesses need to evolve as customer behavior evolves. Marketing in the Age of Google shows you how.

VANESSA FOX is a leading speaker and consultant on search engine strategy. She was previously Google's search engine spokesperson responsible for explaining Google's search algorithm to millions of website owners. She has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY, The Times (of London), Forbes, and on CNN. She's a contributing editor for SearchEngineLand.com and founder and CEO of Nine By Blue, which provides reporting tools and training for search best practices.

Foreword DANNY SULLIVAN xv

Preface xvii

Chapter 1 How Search Has Changed Your Business 1

Chapter 2 How to Use Search Data to Improve Your Business and Product Strategy 25

Chapter 3 How We Search 67

Chapter 4 Building Searcher Personas: Opening the Door to the Crowd of Customers Youve Been Keeping Out 89

Chapter 5 How Search Engines Work 111

Chapter 6 Implementing an Effective Search Strategy 139

Chapter 7 Working with Developers: How to Turn Business Strategy into Tech Speak 157

Chapter 8 How to Cut through the Data and Get the Actionable Metrics You Need 171

Chapter 9 Social Media and Search 185

Chapter 10 Whats Next?: Beyond Google and 10 Blue Links 213

ftoc 8 March 2012; 11:16:0

Notes 229

References 243

Index 245