Happy Yahoolidays: Search Market Specs

Industry watchers are predicting a huge spike in holiday shopping this year — and if you want to cash in on it, you have to be prepared. E-tail sales will hit $32 billion this year, up 18 percent, with a record 114 million shoppers going online, a 6-percent increase, according to JupiterResearch's "Online Retail Holiday Forecast: 2006. But how do you get the customers clicking to your site? By making a search marketing campaign to-do list, and checking it twice.

Search marketing campaigns are critical to any online business, but it's especially true during the fourth quarter. About one-third of gift buyers start their online shopping at search engines, according to Shop.org's BizRate eHoliday Mood Study 2005. The same study showed that 75 percent of e-tailers said search was one of their most successful marketing efforts, second only to house e-mail lists.

Since you don't have a workshop full of elves to help you out, the Yahoo! Search Marketing team is offering the following tips to help you get the most from your campaign, including building a list of relevant keywords, writing ads, managing bid strategy and choosing landing pages most likely to convert clicks to ka-ching.

Build a List of Relevant Keywords

• Review Yahoo! Search Marketing's list of seasonal keywords for relevant additions.
  
• Review your holiday product offerings and best sellers.
  
• Opt into Advanced Match and Content Match to extend your reach.
  
• Apply holiday modifiers, such as "Christmas gift idea."
  
• Offer gift cards and bid on relevant keywords.
  
• Maintain keywords consistent with inventory availability.
  
• Build gift guide for general gift keywords.

Write Targeted Titles and Descriptions

• Position the search term prominently in the title and description.
  
• Customize descriptions by category, for instance gifts versus home décor.
  
• If templates are used, make sure it's not obvious to the shopper.
  
• Include pricing and promotions where possible, including end-date of promotions, and if free shipping is common, play that up.
  
• Include last date for on-time holiday delivery.
• Adjust message throughout the season as appropriate.
• Include multi-channel options such as in-store pick up.
• Put your most important message in first 70 characters of description.
• Consider the context of the marketplace when determining whether pricing or overt branding is advantageous.
• Don't be overly general or specific in your ads, for instance if keyword is general don't promote only one product.
• Coordinate messaging with offline promotions.

Prepare An Effective Bid Strategy

• Adjust bidding and budgets to maximize seasonal opportunity.
  
• Budget adequately for promotional periods.
  
• Budget and bid for maximum sales of best selling products.
  
• Budget appropriately for early shoppers, last-minute shoppers and post-holiday shoppers.
  
• Determine if your objective is strictly return on investment or includes competitive share of market.

Select Effective Landing Pages

• URL must link to page that is obviously and immediately relevant to the keyword.
  
• Land on higher level page if product pages don't carry promotional language.
  
• If not landing on product page, provide a clear and obvious path to product.
  
• Make prices and promotions consistent with search copy.
  
• Provide effective on-site search for easier navigation.
  
• Use gift guide pages for general gifting keywords.
  
• Offer incentive for e-mail capture such as free newsletter or sales alerts.

If You Want to Extend Your Search with Yahoo!

• Participate in Search Submit Express (details and pricing available here) or Search Submit Pro (details and pricing available here).
• Participate in Yahoo! Shopping's Product Submit.

Michelle Megna is managing editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.

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