In the quest for the holy grail of search marketing - more revenue at a higher profit margin - sometimes we get caught up on the details (i.e. the latest search engine wrinkles or capabilities, the newest tactic recommended by an expert, etc.). While knowing these details is certainly important to your success, I thought I’d step back for a moment and review the higher level strategies that are proven to work.

I was recently speaking with a B2B customer who had successfully turned around their search engine marketing program. I asked the customer, "What were the three main things that enabled you to hit your higher lead targets while at the same time getting cost per lead below your company's hurdle?"

Here's what the customer said:

1) "I started using search engines other than Google. Every other search engine we use (i.e. Yahoo, Looksmart, AllBusiness, etc.) they all have better cost per leads than Google. That's because per-click costs are lower, but I also see higher conversion rates from Yahoo than I do from Google."

LESSON: Yes, Google delivers the most traffic. But everyone knows that, so Google's prices per click are very high. If you only use Google you are missing out on a huge opportunity to improve your ROI by using less competitive search engines.

2) "I pruned the deadwood (poorly performing keywords). This was the most time-consuming part."

LESSON: Paid search is like a hydrangea plant: regular pruning helps it grow. One trick you can use to get the most bang for your time spent - start with keywords that cost a lot but have zero conversions.

3) "I optimized our landing page forms. Basically we reduced the number of required fields."

LESSON: Spending money on paid search is wasted money if you do not first optimize your Web site's conversion process. There's a lot of literature out there about how to do so, and the most basic point is: the less effort it takes to complete that process, the more people will actually complete it.

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