Posts Tagged ‘Natural search engine optimisation’
Basic SEO Rules
November 24th, 2009 | 
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This is a sweet little table to have handy when tidying up the onsite SEO stuff. Getting these basics right will go towards supporting that 15 or 20% that Google takes into account when ranking you for relevant keyword phrases.
Of course there’s more to a title or description than the number of characters!
My first rule is to keep the keyword as close to the front of the sentence as possible (proximity) and to keep the number of words down (density)
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Second, you want the title to make sense and press the right buttons. Too many SEO’s focus on stuffing keywords in titles even if they don’t make sense and neglect the fact that the title is what the searcher sees in the results page. You can boost your conversions massively just by treating this tag with the same respect you would give a pay per click advert.
Something similar goes for the description and I often include a telephone number just to show that the site is totally transparent and means business. Telephone numbers create a sense of trust even if the searcher has no intention of using it.
The URL is again important as it shows up in the search engines helping towards your relevancy score in the eyes of the customer. The keyword in the URL has less of an impact on rankings than it once had due to SEO’s abusing it but from a marketing and information organisation sense it is a smart move.
Organic SEO Versus Pay Per Click…is There a Winner?
Pay Per Click Advantages
Pretty much instant exposure – even in competitive markets – as long as you have bid high enough and have got a good quality score for your page (actually creating a page that lowers the bid price and converts well into sales is an area where many novices fall down).
Campaign control - Google provides tools that make your advertising campaign easy to track the conversion ratios and monitor budgets.
Targeted – You can use the keyword matching options to target specifically e.g. ‘Tennis shoes or you can target the phrase e.g. ‘Red Tennis shoes’ or ‘Tennis shoes red’ or you can broadly match to a keyword so ‘Discount shoes for tennis’. You can also exclude words using the negative keyword option.
Pay per click is great for testing the market with new products and services. By posting an advert for your latest idea leading to a ‘squeeze page‘ you can collect data and gauge the interest over a few days and avoid potentially costly market flops.
Pay Per Click Disadvantages
Continuous investment – Pay per click is like just renting space and when you stop paying for your listing it disappears and click prices can fluctuate and in many markets are likely to rise.
Not as trusted as the main listings – Users are 60-80% more likely to click on the organic listing (underneath the top advertising slots) meaning less exposure. However a point to note is if you are getting a lot of clicks for your ad it is a good idea to check out the organic competition to see if there is an opportunity to get an organic listing as your ad copy could be well worthwhile deploying there too.
Profit margin can be small or non-existent – Keywords can be very expensive and outweigh the returns in very competitive markets so you have to be very careful how you select them. It is critical that you quickly discover the ‘buying keywords’ early on and optimise your pages for them.
Organic SEO Advantages
Long term value – Organic listings can be cheaper to attain in less competitive markets but very difficult to achieve in competitive markets, however once attained maintenance can be lower. The graphic shows the initial investment to be higher but as time goes by performance increases and investment lowers.
Organic SEO requires bigger initial investment
Graphic supplied courtesy of Elliance.com
Better click thru rate - SEO is responsible for around 60-80% of the clicks available (in most markets – not all) since users tend to prefer to visit the web sites found at the top in the main organic listings.
Element of stability – Organic listings once attained can be cheaper to maintain and don’t disappear overnight once the funds dry up!
SEO activity benefits your entire web presence – Organic SEO focuses on building reputation through links and content on the web site and at web properties where you have posted content such as blogs, article directories and forums. Investing in your web presence will have satisfying long term rewards.
Organic SEO Disadvantages
Need lots of patience! – It can often take many months to get top ranked for mid/high competition keywords
Less control – Changes in the search engine algorithms, although usually not too volatile, can destabilise rankings without warning.
Resource heavy - Organic SEO can take up more marketing resources initially due to it being a content based strategy
Conclusions
Unsurprisingly both methods are highly effective, especially when compared to offline channels however, the key is to select the the right approach for your business. I often advocate an SEO campaign backed up by pay per click.
The reason for this is that with SEO we only target a handful of keywords and these are often the cream in terms of volume. This leaves us sort of invisible (I say sort of because our well written SEO copy will have long tail phrases salted within it) for a huge swathe of long tail keywords that receive fewer searches but are often higher converting.
A pay per click campaign targeting broad match versions of our main keywords will work towards hoovering up any potential customers that use these long tail phrases where our main organic listing page do not show up. Sweet!
Click here for some free SEO training videos or call 05603 145 278 for a free no strings consultation.
Posted in Marketing Strategy | 
Tags: Natural search engine optimisation, Organic SEO, Pay Per Click, PPC | 
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