SEO Vs Above the Line Marketing
Date: 1/09/2010 - SEO versus traditional marketing methods. SEO is certainly cheaper than traditional marketing or above the line marketing methods. A client recently came to us saying he was about to run a radio campaign, spending $10,000, for a 40 ad spot run and was hoping to get 100 enquiries. This equates to $100 per enquiry. We simply broke it down to their current SEO campaign delivering each enquiry for approximately $6. WOW!. Go SEO
SEO and Marketing Your Business Online.
Search Engine Optimisation, commonly referred to as SEO, is one the most powerful marketing tools available. Year on year, the internet experiences double-digit growth and is now the fastest growing sales channel for almost all businesses. Implementing an SEO strategy for your business can not only be financially beneficial and show a more than a healthy ROI on your SEO spend, but is mandatory if you want to maximise revenue and remain competitive.
The power of SEO is something which is becoming more commonly understood as prolific brands such as Google have turned the internet into a lucrative and highly targeted advertising medium. The Australian online advertising market continues to record explosive growth with online advertising expenditure for first quarter of 2010 growing by a staggering 17 per cent year on year (Source: IAB Australia: Online Advertising Expenditure Report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)). Online expenditure for the first three months of 2010 totalled $512.5 million.
90 per cent of this online advertising expenditure is still devoted to Pay Per Click (PPC) mediums such as Google AdWords, with only 10 per cent going to SEO. Rising costs of PPC have shown a shift in online marketing budgets from PPC to SEO, as an emerging wave of internet savy marketing managers and business owners devote more and more of their marketing budgets towards Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
SEO and Beating Your Competitors
Beating your competitors to the ‘punch’ and engaging in SEO as early as possible definitely has its advantages. By the time your competitors recognise the merit of SEO you will be ahead of the pack with Google recognising the importance of your website for critical keywords and search terms within your industry, and ranking you high in the natural listings as a result. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the future of inbound marketing as it attracts the largest amount of internet search engine users who are searching for a specific service or product.
If you are like most small businesses you are inundated with phone calls and mailings offering all sorts of great ideas to market your business. Whilst some certainly have appeal, all cost you money to find out if they have merit. How many times have you spent hard-earned money on advertising only to be left disappointed and out of pocket?
SEO is the best and cheapest marketing you will ever undertake.
I am sure you have searched for your business on Google. Have you ever wondered why you aren’t on Page 1? Did you ask yourself how your competitors got there? How much business they get? How well they are doing? The answer is probably yes, and the solution is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Nearly all your competitors who are on Page 1 of Google are SEO optimised in some way and they are collectively getting over 89% of the business generated through Google.
SEO gives you a Competitive Advantage
90% of all search engine advertising budgets go into Pay Per Click advertising campaigns, which attract approximately 10% of search engine traffic. The remaining 10% of this spend goes into SEO, which delivers 90% of search engine click throughs. With more and more PPC advertising coming on board each day, the cost of each click goes up, thereby diminishing the PPC campaign returns. A smart business will invest in SEO now, assuring the long term natural ranking of the businesses website, and therefore the amount of leads generated. In essence, the future of the business. Invest in SEO now while your competitors are scrambling for instant gratification with PPC and you will dominate your market.
SEO and Google Maps
How can you get on page 1 of Google without any SEO knowledge? Google Maps provides an immediate and effective way to get on page one of Google without the need for extensive SEO knowledge. Although a listing on the Maps will not generate as many leads as those coming from the organic search results, it is certainly an effective way to see your name ‘up in lights’.
Where do the eyes look on Search Engines?
Have you ever wondered where peoples eyes look when they are using a search engine and are looking at the page 1 listings on Google or the other search engines? Independent research using the latest camera technology provides 'heat maps' that clearly show where people are looking. Not surprisingly, the 'hot spots' are around the top listings in the natural search results with the colours cooling as you move down the page and across to the right.
Various online analytic tools provide empirical evidence of where clicks come from but this eye-scanning research shows the areas of the page and the listings that people actually look at. It clearly shows the top organic listings getting the bulk of the traffic. This is further proof that search engine optimisation (SEO) is crucial to increasing the amount of traffic going to your website and to the success of your business.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Optimisation is the process of modifying a website in such a way that a search engine (ie, Google) views it as important for certain search terms. The types of modifications will vary depending on the type of business, the industry the business is in, the current website ranking, how their competitors rank, the website structure and content, links to other websites and so on. When a search engine 'looks' at the modified website it's ranking algorithm will assign a ranking and show that website at the appropriate position in the search results. Over time a good optimisation will increase your website search engine ranking.
The Click Factory not only provides an SEO service to increase your Google rankings, we take a holistic approach to measuring the traffic that results from the SEO process. What happens to the increased visitors to your website? How do you convert these visits to sales? See Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) below.
Google Analytics
Using reporting and analytics to understand the effectiveness of your SEO campaign is important, but it's also critical to examine the overall usability of your website. How many leads does each keyword and search phrase generate? How many enquiries lead to a profitable transaction? How long does a visitor stay in your website and which pages do they click through to? What pages generate the most contacts or enquiries, and where to people leave your website? Google Analytics is a tool that can give you many of these insights but you will also need to use some other reporting applications to get the full picture. The Click Factory provides such reporting so you can really understand your SEO and website usability.
SEO Melbourne
At the Click Factory we have run literally hundreds of SEO campaigns over many years for companies in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and all State capital cities. Our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) service is therefore well proven and highly evolved. No matter what your requirements – localised or national – we will tailor the SEO process to your needs. If you're looking for an SEO Company that is accountable and has a proven track record, look no further.
Google SEO
Let's be very clear. A high organic Google ranking can only be achieved via SEO. It is still possible to get a good ranking for very targeted search terms if you have the right URL (eg, www.redspottedshoes.com.au) and have been in business for a while, but for any standard search term (eg, 'shoes') you simply have to be optimised. Of most concern for any business that is not already on page 1, there is absolutely no doubt that it is getting harder and harder to achieve a page 1 ranking, and it's definitely not going to get any easier. If your business is not on an SEO program to achieve a page 1 ranking then it should be a top priority. You can be assured that your competitors are working on it.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is the process of understanding how traffic gets to your website (through SEO for example), what happens once a person is in your website (through reporting and analytics), and what strategies can be implemented to increase the number of conversions per inquiry/lead/website visit.
CRO strategies will vary from relatively straight forward tweaking of the website and product offers to multi-page constructions that are built to receive traffic based on where that traffic is coming from.
The Click Factory combines SEO and CRO to offer a complete online marketing service for major Australian businesses.
