While it may seem obvious to many of us in the industry (the veterans called) may not be so obvious to everyone.

That is, no matter what score you achieve or how much you are spending on PPC in a month, you really should only consider one thing: their customers. 100% of your efforts should be focused on who your customer is.

In this article I give some tips to ensure your marketing campaign revolves around the client.

Although I have not been able to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York this year (which was last year - which was an amazing experience) I was surprised and happy to know that there is a horse theme emerging from the sessions of both the EMS present, as well as engines.

This issue is the user's intention.

This means that we must understand what the user - your customer - wants when visiting the search engine, and finally, click search engine outcome if paid or organic.

I started thinking about my clients in recent years and some of the things they said when I ask, "What are you looking for in this campaign?"

Many answers are: "I want to be number 1 for [keyword here]" or "I have to lower the cost of PPC by [value here]" or "I have to beat my competitor [insert name of the competitors here]. "

What is the most important element missing from these comments (and I think many customers in general)? The focus on the client.

Over the years I've been asking the question "What are you looking for in this campaign?" I think I can count on one hand of people who responded to my question with, "I have to reach my target audience effectively."

While many companies are starting to realize this now, there has been for some time.

I think what's changing in the world today is that companies are beginning to realize that search is big business. As such, vendors are companies that interact with SEM and IT people. Is this marketing people who are asking the right questions, or in many cases, respond to them in the right way.

Here's an example: I recently sat on a call with a client and one of the first things he said was: "We have designed seven unique characters for our site and should address each one in particular."

"What? You've done the characters? We usually do that." But you know what? They did an incredible job. After reviewing your information person who could put a face to the person. I knew what that person looked like, and what your intention was with the site.

And that's the most important consideration in the SEM world today - you should know who your customer is. You must understand your intention, whether you will succeed.

For example, if your customers tend to have completed the research phase and are in the process of buying, do not send to a PPC landing page product specifications. Instead, send a landing page with pricing and shipping information.

Better yet, send them to the pricing page / box and send you free! That will certainly help promote the sale.

Similarly, if you are finding a product specification page of top-ranked for the purchase of a search term, try to find a better site to optimize for that term and de-optimize the product page to purchase page of higher rank.

This is where characters are very useful. If you can put a face to your customer, you can determine your intent. And if you can determine its intent that can effectively create your entire marketing campaign around him.

In general what you'll discover, as more and more intimate with the person, you probably do not need to rank # 1 organically by a highly competitive period. You could probably get away with it over the visibility of times and still get a good impression.

Similarly, you will probably find that knowledge of the intention of your lens can help you optimize your supply strategies by reducing expensive terms, the farewell performance of day, or anything else you need to do to ensure your site is visible to them at the right time.

What many search engine marketers are learning is that the user's intent derived from a right person is more valuable than anything else.

Is more valuable than a # 1 ranking. It is also more valuable than an expensive PPC term.

In fact, such knowledge is likely that the impact of the terms that use altogether. Although you may think that the search will use certain terms, in fact, you may find that you are very far from the base.

However, it is not only search marketing related purpose. Search engines are also investing heavily in technology to help them understand the intent of the search engine to serve the correct results.

For example, I might be searching for "Manhattan" and the search engine has to determine what my intention is. Am I looking for information about the city? Am I looking to find a hotel or plane book? Or, do I want a drink recipe.

You see, the terms as simple as this can mean many things, so search engines are trying to use its technology to find out what the researcher wants.

And often, when doing a search and get a PageRank 3 site beating a PageRank 6 site, that's why. It is because the search engine has tried to determine the intent and therefore try to match the site that best suits the browser.

But why a search engine to be so concerned about the intention? It's simple. At this time most of us have Google set as my homepage. But what does it take to change this to MSN or Yahoo? A couple of mouse clicks and you just change the results of search providers.

This is what scares most engines - one of their competitors, or a black horse completely new will come along and lure users away from a technology that improves the relevance to the user.

Therefore, if you are planning your SEM campaign for 2006, my opinion is to return to the drawing board. First, determine your goals. Next, determine who you are trying to accomplish and why you want to use your product or service. If you can determine this intent, then you can effectively create a SEM campaign to be successful and profitable.