Archive for September, 2009
September 9th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
Organic search engine optimization is the goal of just about anyone who wants to be found on Google, Yahoo, Bing, or the engines of tomorrow. In the purest sense of the word, people want to be at the top of the unpaid search engine listings, solely on the merits of their own site, without paying a penny for traffic, links, or SEO consulting. Also referred to as “natural” search engine optimization, it is usually a misnomer because most of the top ranking sites in any field need to use some artificial means to achieve competitive search engine positions. Even if a site once ranked “naturally” based on its own merits, it probably didn’t take long for motivated SEOs to usurp that site’s position.
Can you get real results using “organic” SEO practices, assuming that you’re referring to the classic method championed by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines? The answer (like all things SEO) is a little bit yes and a little bit no. We have seen new exact match domain names with no links or submissions appear in the top 20 results within the space of a few weeks. This is probably because Google is able to find sites based on server propagation updates. Most people in the SEO world will tell you that a domain match for a keyword phrase is likely the result of the search engine giving you credit for a “navigation query” which is not (technically) the result of SEO. However, buying a .com, .net. or .org domain name that exactly matches a high volume search can put you in the natural results quickly, so it can be a good substitute for very expensive link building.
For most sites, the organic way of getting found in the search engines falls flat. You can build a website, do excellent keyword research, have great original content, and add features that are the envy of your online rivals, but you still need to get it connected to the rest of the Internet. In the world of engines like Google and Yahoo, this is done by getting links. Some sites, like Facebook or YouTube, became popular because they were so interesting (to their users) that people recommended them to their friends and linked to them from blogs, websites, and online postings. Although this is the classic tale of organic growth, it is still something of a misnomer because these sites could have become popular without the help of search engines.
If you want to get a link to a site that is useful but not fascinating, you are going to have to work for your links, by asking vendors, customers, friends, and neighbors to link to you. You are going to need to define how the link is structured in order to play along with search engine algorithms. You will also likely get links from popular web directories, even though the value of the link exceeds the traffic you ever expect to get from the directory. At this point, you have probably crossed into a gray area of link buying, but buying a link in the Yahoo directory creates a definite SEO advantage. If you check out the profiles for the top 10 ranking sites in Google for most good terms, you will notice that just about every site other than Wikipedia is using a certain level of skill in obtaining links. The process of securing links can be one of the biggest minefields in SEO, since some paid link schemes can get you filtered for your most important keywords.
In a similar vein, the phrase “organic link growth” seems more theoretical than factual. For links to grow, you have to get traffic from somewhere. If you’re buying paid ads or PPC, then you will get traffic but it will not necessarily link back to you. At Web.com Search Agency, we have had new SEO clients come to us who have done PPC for years, and gotten tens of thousands of visitors, but had a minimal number of actual links. By acquiring links from trusted directories (like Yahoo) and relevant sites, we were able to provide rankings that hadn’t been possible with on-site SEO. The debate about whether link building is “100% White Hat” is colored by the type of links that are obtained for the client. We have seen some sites achieve good rankings from questionable link sources, but we prefer to help clients hook themselves into a network of links that adds long term value. Links of this type pass the “natural” test when we see real traffic coming from the referring site.
There is one category of SEO that would definitely fall short of the “organic” profile that search engines look for, and that is the site that uses black hat tricks to secure rankings. In most cases these practices are clearly artificial, and include cloaking, keyword stuffing, link spamming, and hidden text. Usually sites like these don’t last too long in the natural results, but some sites have a degree of link popularity or site age that seems to make them rank well despite their flaws. The use of black hat techniques can lead to penalties that might render your site invisible to the general public, and are not recommended. If you had your SEO done by another agency at some point in the past, you may also want to have it revisited by a professional because you may be incorporating practices that were once approved but are now disallowed. In a manner of speaking, the color of your hat changed while you were wearing it.
Google advises people to build their websites as if there were no search engines, but there is an obvious fallacy in this philosophy. Many people have come to us with sites that were built with no consideration for search engine spiders, and as a result they could not get ranked in their current condition. A site with no page titles, content embedded in images, and no external links just isn’t going to enjoy good rankings. A site that has been optimized for search engines, with easy spiderability, good titles, and relevant text is going to enjoy the advantages that come from search engine traffic. Search engines prefer a certain standard of usability, and that standard gets more stringent as websites evolve. Therefore the terms “organic” and “natural” get further from reality as search engines improve. In the world of SEO, it may be best to describe a well optimized site as “refined.” Even though an organic search optimization process may be an impossibility or oxymoron, your end goal involves getting your message out the general public, so being a little unnatural isn’t always a bad thing.
Tags: organic search engine optimization, organic seo
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September 9th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
One of the reasons that an SEO expert should know more about real estate optimization and marketing is that almost every real estate agent has a website. In the same way that realtors have business cards with their picture on them, they have an online presence for people who may want to look at several home choices and schedule a walkthrough. Like many SEO customers, Real Estate agents need a quick education on what to expect in the optimization process. Some of the top realtors in any town will also pick up on the fact that one or two commissions can pay for a fair amount of website optimization, and a well optimized site can generate plenty of leads from buyers and sellers.
As a group, realtors can also use guidance on the need for certain SEO changes to their sites, since they may have already bought a pre-packaged site. There are only a few website design companies out there who specialize in MLS (Multiple Listing Search, a dynamic feature showing all available homes in an area) functionality, so as a rule, realtor websites can all look very similar. This similarity often extends to the content on the site itself, and in some cases the only original content on a real estate website will be the realtor’s name, address, phone number, and the neighborhoods served by the agent.
Anyone who’s read Dale Carnegie will know that the fastest way to gaining shared understanding with people is to explain things in terms that they can understand. People in SEO tend to drop a lot of jargon about keyword density, H tags, anchor strength, and site trust, all of which are concepts that could take several hours of training to truly grasp. This is would be similar to an agent talking about comps, escrow, and title searches before asking customers about what they’d like in a home. Relating the world of SEO to the world of real estate can make it easier to move ahead with vital site changes, and make your client, who is in this case a realtor, a partner in your success.
How do you relate SEO concepts to realtors? If you think about it, SEO isn’t all that different from real estate. Agents in commercial and residential real estate sell the location and the structure on top of it. In this case, the location is the domain name, and the structure is the website. The further you go toward the top of the search engine results, the more valuable the real estate. Likewise, a well built site at the top of the SERPs is akin to a luxury home in Beverly Hills. Naturally, real world locations are a bit more permanent, but SEO companies have an opportunity to show agents that the best spots are worth the money.
Using real estate concepts in SEO doesn’t stop with the website. Links to the site, and their quality, can be explained in these terms as well. In the SEO world, we talk about linking to “bad neigborhoods.” Likewise, an endorsement from a gated community (like a .gov site link) is worth more than 200 from the studio apartment complex downtown (like directories that give links to anyone, including casinos and adult sites.) The importance of page title writing can be likened to summarizing a home’s best features first. It isn’t that much of a stretch to say that your page title should be crafted in the same way that you’d place a classified ad for a home. If you really want to belabor the metaphor, you could even say that things like content, internal linking, and alt tags are analogous to zoning or HOA regulations. If you’re clear on how SEO elements relate to each other, the astute agent should get the impression that (just like the sales process) an incomplete SEO job isn’t going to end up generating commissions.
Uniqueness is another site aspect that can be related to realtors, but some caution should be advised. In the same way that many homebuyers are satisfied with “vanilla” homes in developments with only 3 choices of exterior paint color, real estate agents may want to have a site with the exact same features of any other website. From an SEO standpoint, however, there should be at least one unique feature that is going to keep people coming back to the site. This may be an MLS search that doesn’t ask for a signup, a mortgage/ payment calculator, or a virtual tour of the neighborhood. Most sites talk about schools and community centered-events, but a realtor who gets more in-depth and interactive may get multiple visits from shoppers who are seeking to eventually make a buy. An interesting feature like up-to-date pricing or recent sales figures may get realtors links from media outlets, blogs, and even other agents.
The value proposition of real estate SEO cannot be underestimated, and some of today’s most successful agents already know this. Even though there are more realty websites on the internet than almost any other small business model, the vast majority of these sites contain minimal SEO value, either because of unoriginal content, poor keyword selection, no link popularity, bad design elements (like frames), or Flash elements that can’t be crawled. For this reason, there playing field for many online real estate markets is surprisingly level, and a moderate amount of search engine friendly redesign plus link building can create a definite impact.
Relating SEO to client business models can be helpful for a variety of reasons. Working in a client’s own vernacular gives you an ability to relate to the client, and you will save time if you can turn SEO concepts into relevant ideas in the customer’s mind. Obviously, you don’t want to oversimplify things too much, but there is a clear advantage for bringing search engine concepts into the mindset of your clients. Even highly competitive salespeople have a network of colleagues and competitors with whom they share information, and one comfortable SEO client in real estate can literally create dozens of leads from people in the same geographical area. Since many agents prefer to stick to certain neighborhoods or homes within driving distance of their offices, a good SEO company can work with several local agents without excessive overlapping. Some real estate brokers may even want all of their agents to follow a solid SEO strategy, since this will mean that the agency itself will have more visibility in the search engines, even though it is spread among several different sites. In all of these cases, an agent who can relate to SEO concepts is going to be more comfortable with the type of changes necessary for success, and the cost of generating quality real estate client leads.
Tags: real estate seo, seo, seo for real estate agents
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September 3rd, 2009 by Patrick Hare
Every few weeks, a new viral website pops up and gets an unexpectedly high amount of traffic. Much like “viral videos” that are linked via a friend’s email (or more recently, Twitter and Facebook postings), viral websites suddenly become popular thanks to the content that is on them. Despite the fact that every online marketing agency hopes to replicate the success of a viral site for a client, amateurs with no sales goal in mind seem to obtain better traffic numbers in a few weeks than some Fortune 500 companies will get in a year. Unfortunately for these amateurs, higher bandwidth costs often exceed any money made by the site itself.
People who run online and search engine marketing campaigns for a living can still learn a lot from the success of these viral fads. The first thing to remember is that interesting sites get more traffic than boring ones, and people will recommend a site with good content. Secondarily, search engines keep track of this kind of information, because they have a vested interest in showing people things that they’d like to see. For years, search giants like Google have gauged the interest factor in websites by counting the number of links that point from one site to another. More interesting sites tend to get more links. The field of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) uses this fact when it obtains links for online customers so their sites can become more “interesting” in the eyes of Google, Yahoo, and (to a lesser extent) Bing. In fact, there is a maxim in the optimization world that “interesting sites don’t need SEO” but there are cases where SEO gets people to the site so they can recommend it to others.
For people who sell more mundane items that aren’t likely to be the next viral hit, there are online site promotion techniques that can at least ensure some traffic. For example, you can offer something free or make a person’s life easier. In the world of real estate website marketing, the sites which offer a free MLS listing search without requiring a signup have more success, more repeat visitors, and more recommendations. Mortgage and refinancing websites that offer simple online rate calculators have been seen to keep people interested, and more likely to make a phone call. There are even “virtual makeover” sites offer a limited online trial version that shows people what they’d look like with makeup and a new hairstyle, but charge a little extra to give their visitors access to all styles.
Online site promotion firms (like Web.com Search Agency) generally follow a more traditional path toward creating web traffic, because there are proven ways of getting a consistent and growing number of site visitors over time. One of the downfalls of a viral campaign is that it peaks, and despite the large amount of traffic it usually doesn’t generate the kind of money one would expect. For example, YouTube is the home of almost every viral video online, but it still isn’t turning a profit. Even though the average marketing firm hopes that it can achieve a viral hit for its client, the audience for viral sites and videos is fickle and an accidental “hit” website can’t always be replicated on the agency level. However, agencies can still help you spice up your website so that it gets repeat visitors, or help you get paid traffic that results in profitable sales and signups. In the final analysis, the “lottery” approach of a viral site may be rewarding to its creator, but the “sure bet” involves a few proven techniques that require a bit more hard work. If you hire an experienced search marketing agency, you can get manageable results and sustainable site traffic growth, which is the real key to long term internet success.
Tags: viral marketing
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September 2nd, 2009 by Patrick Hare
For quite some time, the field of online commerce has been a tough sell for executives and managers because it has so many levels of uncertainty. Despite being based around a technical framework, websites don’t have an easy way of quantifying where conversions came from, and it is easy to underestimate the value of website traffic if visitors choose to make their purchases over the phone. Even if the site is the primary channel for attracting new visitors, it can be difficult to see which campaign, initiative, or search engine brought in the best leads.
There are a few ways to find out if a web visit resulted in a phone call, and even to distill that information into segments which specify the campaigns and offline ad initiatives that resulted in a sale. Here are a few popular methods for finding out is your marketing campaign is creating sales dollars for your company.
- Get a trackable phone number. Our parent company, Web.com, makes it possible to design a site with a custom phone number. You can monitor how many people call, how long the calls are, and even if the call resulted in a sale. By having a phone number that is different from your main business line, and exclusive to your website or a particular campaign, you can get a quick read on how well a campaign is going. From a pay-per-click standpoint, you can have multiple 800 numbers, each of which is assigned to a different initiative. By using phone tracking software, you can integrate your phone and order/CRM system to see where the calls are coming from.
- Set up different website addresses. If you pay close enough attention to infomercials or direct response ads on TV, you may notice that the website address on the screen is different even though the rest of the commercial is exactly the same. The phone number is usually different, and the announcer will say to “call the number on your screen.” We once had the opportunity to ask a direct response advertising company about this tactic, and they told us that different TV channels and networks got different versions of the same commercial. As a result, they were able to track sales results based on viewership, and they were even able to determine whether viewers on a certain channel would be more likely to call or to go online. Naturally, you can extrapolate this practice into different online ad channels, so content ads may land on a different site (or part of a site) than search ads, and you can even segment Google, Yahoo, and Bing ads to different pages for more study.
- Offer a special coupon code. If you have a coupon code in your paid ad, people will still use it when they call in. Any phone call that applies the code can be used to see how well the ad worked. Naturally, you will want to adjust your pricing to compensate for the code, or change the offer to include a free item of nominal value instead of a discount.
- Ask. This is the least accurate way of finding out how your sales came in, but it is still a good business practice. It is inaccurate because some people may visit your site, bookmark it, and come back weeks later. Additionally, your employees may not always ask “how did you find us” when they are taking orders, especially if there are better incentives for unassisted sales. Though the accuracy is suspect, the value in asking often helps you learn about other ways people are hearing about your business.
The value of having phone support for a website cannot be underestimated. In fact, many businesses will only run paid online advertising when their call centers are staffed, because the conversion rate is that much higher. An unusual paradox in the online world is that people won’t trust 256 bit encryption in a secure online shopping cart, but they will read out their credit card number to a complete stranger over the phone. In many cases, people will also need a single question answered (like “is it in stock?”) before completing their orders, so even though you may not be able to track that particular call as a conversion, your bottom line has improved as a result. Even though phone support for an ecommerce business takes a lot of setup and monitoring, the value of a well integrated phone and online ordering system can give you precise intelligence about which ad campaigns are working.
Tags: conversion optimization, measure phone conversions
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September 1st, 2009 by Patrick Hare
If you’re running any kind of enterprise that depends on internet traffic, then you know that conversion rate optimization can be the difference between getting by and getting ahead. Whether your website traffic comes exclusively from search engines or from radio and television ads, websites that are optimized for conversion can turn clicks into sales. Even if you only improve your conversion rate by one half of one percent, you can increase your sales exponentially based on the volume of traffic that comes to your site. In fact, an optimal scenario for conversion rate optimization involves cutting back on your online advertising spend while your sales increase.
Here are a few fast tips for conversion optimization, starting with the most basic.
- Look at the site. This may sound unusual, but in many cases executives and online store owners who aren’t aware of how their current websites look. If you plan on pushing a significant volume of traffic toward the site, ask yourself if you would buy a product from the site. Next, try to buy a product or finish a transaction on the site itself, and ask yourself if the process was easy enough for an average person.
- Test the site on an average person. Get someone who hasn’t used the site to perform an action, or follow the shopping process up to the checkout section. Watch how they are using the site without offering suggestions on how to find something. Note that if you have to personally point out the required steps to making a transaction, your site may need a redesign.
- Copy your competitors. If you know that one or two of your rivals are making a lot of sales online, you may want to emulate the shopping process. (Note that you should never copy site content or trademarked terms.) Ideally, you should have looked at 10 or more of your competitors in the sponsored and natural search engine results, and made notes on what aspects of the site a customer may find appealing. It may feel like cheating, but a window shopper in your field will develop a certain expectation about the look and feel of a site selling your product or service. If your site is significantly different from ones that sell similar wares, you may have a problem.
- Land paid traffic on relevant pages. The closer you can match a keyword to a page that matches the search query, the more likely you are to make a conversion. In the world of sponsored traffic, “landing pages” are specific to their search terms, and some of the top ecommerce sites have multiple landing pages designed to closely match the end user’s search query. Even if you don’t want to create new pages, dropping PPC on more relevant site pages can result in improved sales.
- Learn about conversion enhancers. There are a lot of landing page optimization tricks for getting better results. Many different factors go into improved conversions, from clear calls to action, to trust indicators, to reduced friction in the buying process. Sometimes a single change can double a conversion rate, but usually it takes a lot of little changes to make your site work the way you want it to. There are even sites like MarketingExperiments.com which have case studies related to various conversion enhancement techniques.
- Fix your Pay-Per-Click advertising. In some cases, a website is already adequate for conversion optimization, but the traffic being sent to the site is no good. If you’re managing PPC in-house, it always pays to get a second opinion, either from a consultant or an outside agency. If you pay an agency to manage your online marketing, ask to see the list of keywords and average conversion rate for each keyword. While there are a lot of factors in pay-per-click marketing, the average conversion rate should be at least 2.5% on a search-matching campaign.
One of the best ways to instill the need for higher conversions is to impress the cost of web traffic on your employees and outside agencies. Depending on the size of your operation, you may be spending a few thousand dollars a month or several million, whether this money goes to online sources or traditional media. If you can identify the value of a single customer, you can quickly calculate the potential ROI improvement that comes from optimizing your conversion rate. In some cases, a new customer or lead may only be worth a few dollars, but there are some companies (particularly those with longer sales cycles) that can make millions of dollars of a single client. In a high value case, a cost per conversion of ten thousand dollars may be a bargain, but most online stores would like to keep their CPA below a certain percentage (like 15%) of an actual sale.
Finally, it cannot be stressed enough that conversion rate optimization is a never ending process. Testing and improvement should be continuous, since your online rivals will be periodically updating their own sites, adding new features, and keeping up with general trends in ecommerce and site design. At Web.com Search Agency, we have taken on new clients who previously had a great conversion rate, but lost market share over time because they did not keep up with advanced conversion practices. Having a fresh, easy to follow site that presents limited obstacles in the sales process is a fantastic way to increase sales, even if the amount of traffic to your site stays the same or goes down.
Tags: conversion optimization, conversion rate optimization, increase conversions
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