During the economic downturn, finding a good job becomes more competitive than ever. Search marketing, such as PPC, PPM, SE Optimosation , Email Marketing & Social media marketing are the best tools which has provided a cost-efficient base for online marketing pros to expend their customer base and generate revenue, to transmite their business rationale or ideas, and reinforce their company image. But you may not be familiar with the techniques that the internet marketing professionals use to sucsessfully execute their marketing campaign.

Let’s see how SE marketing technique can be used to reinforce your job search. Let’s start with Pay-Per-Click.

PPC campaign development may include several critical processes, which is very similar to the job searching process:

1. SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) analysis

Like SWOT analysis can be one of the most important processes for online marketers to develop their online marketing solution through brand advertising, direct response advertising, social marketing and search advertising, SWOT analysis can be one of most important stage for a job seeker in his/her job searching process. Through a self-SWOT analysis, one should establish his/her own “Unique Sales proposition” to identify what set himself /herself apart from his/her competitor in the job market and use it as his/her advantage to market his/herself to the potential employer in the job market.

2. Identify business goal and KPI (Key Performance Indicator) to monitor the campaign performance

Like an online marketing professionals need to identify their business goal, action to convert and KPI based on the buying cycle, such as number of site visits, site visit depth, repeat traffic and sales volume or revenue, number of white paper downloads, a job seeker should set up his/her own KPI for his/her own job search campaigning, such as number of searches or clicks on the resume, number of contact received, number of job interview or offer received, etc.

3. Keywords Generation

Some of many techniques that online marketing professionals use to build their keywords can be:

Generate keywords based on product or market niche, and target long tail keywords to improve ROAS.

Apply brand variations, misspellings, singulars, plurals, acronyms, and reference the search query report, glossaries and index of Keyword-focused publications to expend keyword pool.

Perform click path analysis to measure views assist—the contribution that a search phrase or display ads make the to the conversion of other ad or keyword– and monitor the first phrase that a searcher uses to the one that results in the conversion.

Use keyword generation tools such as word tracker and select keywords with reference to their KEI.

Use Google keyword selection and overture keyword tools to estimate the possible traffic and ad position, wisely use broad, phrase, negative and embedded match for better conversion rate and use the question answered by the targeted ad to extend the keyword pool.

By apply the similar concept, a job seeker can generate the keyword pool for his/her job search campaign (which will be explained later) by using the technique such as:

Expand keywords pool based on unique personal quality and qualifications, job function and duties.

Use the combinations of different variation of job duties, position names, proposed locations, and use keywords tool such as Google or Overture keywords tool, keywords discovery, or Google zeitgeist to find out what the search phrase people tend use to inquire about the job you are looking for.

4. Ad creation

Some of many techniques that SEM professionals may use can be like:

Optimize ad title & description with targeted keywords, unique sales proposition and call to action to increase CTR.

Perform geo-targeting and local targeting campaigns to target both explicit (e.g. Orlando Pet shop) and implicit (e.g. chiropractor ) Local search.

Create ads to hit the target audience at an explicit level by niche keywords, and implicit level by targeted unique sales proposition.

Use geographical descriptors or unique terms based on product characteristics to screen out unqualified clicks and customize ad copy as the window of the landing page by creating ad title and description according to the headline, major product description and benefit on the landing page to increase the conversion rate.

By using the similar concept, a job searcher may consider applying the techniques as follows:

Optimize the title in his/her candidate profile on job related sites with targeted keywords generated in the keywords campaign.

Highlight unique technical skill, characteristics, or qualification on descriptions section, of his/her resume, and post resume on local or national job sites or both based on personal circumstance to increase resume exposure.

Use geographical descriptor (e.g. New York CPA) or unique terms according to the nature of the proposed job to screen out unqualified employers.

Customize the profile as the window of the resume (landing page) by creating the title of the profile as well as the description according to his/her achievement, unusual technical and interpersonal skill, and benefit he/she can bring to the potential employer on the online resume.

5. Web analytics and conversion tracking

Some of the techniques an SEM may use for web analysis and conversion tracking can be like:

Conduct A/B split or multivariate test to experiment different ad title different ad titles and offers by creating multiple ads in an ad group, and use GWO (Google Web Optimizer) to conduct multivariate test on to test various landing page element vibration combinations such as headline, offers to optimize CTR and conversion rate to increase the click value.

Use GA to monitor campaign performance by using traffic source report to identify traffic source such as direct traffic, referring site and various search engines to adjust both online and offline marketing strategy, placement-targeting strategy, and adjust marketing campaign on specific search engine accordingly, and use new vs. returning report to measure the volume of new and returning visitors to adjust marketing message or/and offer to new and returning visitor as necessary.

The job searcher can consider creating multiple profiles with different title and description to test how different keywords or focuses of qualification as well as call to action (e.g. Contact me for your customized SEM solution) can impact on the CTR of the profile on resume. He/she may also test different page elements (e.g. achievement, technical skills, etc) on the different resume to test how each resume variation can impact on the conversion rate, such as phone call, interviews or job offer.

The SEM techniques can be extended in more ways than you may think. Let me know if you come up with any new innovative ideas. Stay tuned as we dig further in Cognitive Search Marketing.

The battle of the search engines continues with Google stepping up its game by refining its search results.

Google Inc. is giving Web surfers a few more ways to refine their search results, signaling its resolve to ward off rival Microsoft Corp.’s aggressive campaign to lure traffic.

The changes announced Thursday might be hard to notice because they require clicking on a “show options” link above Google’s search results. The feature has been around since May, making it possible to focus the results exclusively on videos, discussion forums, reviews or books. Now news and blogs are joining the list of options.

Microsoft introduced similar features for limiting search results to specific categories as part of a June upgrade that renamed its search engine as Bing.

In another new wrinkle, Google is allowing users to limit the listed results to information indexed within the past hour. Google already had options that restricted results to the past day, week or year.

Google’s users also will be able to tell the search engine whether they want to see more or fewer results geared toward shopping.

The extra bells and whistles are being introduced while Bing has been helping Microsoft gain momentum in search, a lucrative field because it drives so much of the advertising on the Web.

Helped by a $100 million marketing campaign, Microsoft’s U.S. share of the search market climbed to 9.3 percent in August from 8 percent in May, according to comScore Inc. Meanwhile, Google has been able to maintain its huge lead, handling 65 percent of U.S. Web searches.

Microsoft hopes to process even more requests beginning next year by handling searches for Yahoo Inc., which has been processing 19 percent of U.S. search queries. Even though it plans to rely on Microsoft’s technology, Yahoo also has been adding more features to its search results in hopes of gaining more traffic, too.

Google said its latest changes were driven by the shifting demands of its audience

“Our users are asking more and more from search engines,” said Nundu JanakiRam, an associate product manager for the Mountain View-based company. “They have questions that we didn’t even dream they would be asking a few years ago.”