You’ve heard about SEO. You’re convinced SEO works very well for different kinds of online business. What you probably wonder is why it’s so powerful.

That’s why I wrote this report – to show you not one, not five, not ten… but twenty-eight different reasons to buy
SEO. To see why SEO is so powerful. To spotlight the role it can play in marketing and communicating.

A few weeks ago, Search Engine Land carried my article about the difficulty of pricing SEO services and it got a lot of positive response.

People reached out with new questions, and shared challenges they faced along the SEO sales process, as they struggled to convince internal managers and CEOs about the value of optimizing for search engines, and getting them to expand their marketing budgets for SEO.

Those questions and issues are addressed in this article – beginning with the most compelling reason  why buying SEO is such a good idea.

1.  SEO Is Not A Cost But An Investment

An investment with a high return. By tying in SEO to Web analytics data, you may observe certain keywords having great conversion rates for which you rank only on page #2 on Google and know that you’re leaving money on the table.

Lifting your rank to the top 3 spots on the first page, where most clicks go, can provide a massive return on your modest investment into SEO. It’s why SEO has been likened to investing in real estate - the returns can be truly stupendous when you get it right.

2.  SEO Turns The Spotlight On Your Sales Rockstar

And who would that be? Your website!

Think about it. It’s open 7 days a week, all year long, and never calls in sick or reports late to work. It does whatever it’s told to do, and pulls in sales, leads and opt-ins like clockwork. Your website is your ‘perfect employee’, multitasking effectively, tackling thousands of prospects at once, and only limited by what you ask of it.

Search engine optimization lavishes attention on your sales rock-star, generating the highest performance by giving it the right emphasis and focus in your marketing arsenal.

3.  SEO Is A Crucial Part Of Your Marketing Mix

If you’ve read my other posts here on Search Engine Land, you’ll already know that I’m clear about the importance of SEO for marketing any business. SEO is the master when it comes to pulling in prospects, and can help boost conversions too.

But I also believe that SEO is not the only game in town! SEO alone cannot help you reach your highest marketing potential. Social media, branding and other marketing strategies segue into and complement SEO, the combination strengthening and reinforcing each element to grow your business exponentially… faster.

As a manager or CEO then, your challenge isn’t about picking one over another, but how best to intelligently integrate SEO into your marketing mix to reap rich rewards.

And that’s why this isn’t a ‘battle between marketers’, with specialists in each branch trying to out-sell the other to their clients, but rather an opportunity for collaboration and partnership in leading a business manager or CEO towards the right mix of marketing services – including SEO – that will bring the highest cumulative benefit.

Instead of always “giving customers what they want”, it’s time to face the fact that, often, clients do not know how to select from the diverse options at their disposal.

As professionals, marketers and SEO consultants must not be dismissive or misleading about other specialties than their own, but instead help clients build the right foundation, mix and plan, and then guide them to effectively implement and manage the most cost effective, high-return strategies and tactics that are aligned with their overall business goals.

A part of the responsibility professional marketers share is to steer clients away from danger, or stop them from embracing populist tactics that will actually turn out to be a quagmire in which their business gets stuck, or quicksand into which it gradually sinks without a trace. In my opinion, ‘not telling the full truth’ is just the same as ‘lying’. This approach may not work for every company. Some might even frown at your desire to step outside your scope and field of expertise.

But for small and medium businesses and start ups, by adopting such an advisory/consultative role and offering professional advice, reaching out a helping hand to offer “business development” advice, and showing rock-solid proof to back up your offerings, prices and advice, you can go a long way in building trust. At that point, clients will be willing to follow you, even when you suggest an approach that points in another direction than what they believed would be the right choice.

It bears to always keep in mind that clients are buying a consultant’s expertise only because they don’t have it themselves, and therefore they are (logically) unable to ask for the “perfect offer”.  Selling them whatever they ask for is often not in their best interests. And this is just as true for big brands with internal staff as it is for smaller businesses.

4.  SEO Impacts The Research/Buying Cycle

SEO will increase your sales without proportionately increasing your marketing costs, thereby growing profits exponentially and over time. SEO can further all your business goals at a better ROI than most other comparable forms of online marketing because of this fundamental effect of better conversions and more sales at little incremental cost.

Assuming that everybody has heard about your brand or thinks that you’re the best place to buy can be a very costly mistake. People are constantly researching good deals, and are using the social-driven Web for comparison shopping. And price conscious shopping behavior is more common in tough financial times, when consumers spend their money more cautiously.

SEO plays an important role in this research and buying cycle. It’s like a prospect magnet, attracting potential buyers to your website through critical and relevant keywords and phrases ranked high in search engines where searchers are already looking for information about them. It’s about being where your customers are, and directing them towards solutions you offer them.

5.  SEO Pricing Is Variable

Pricing SEO services is difficult (even though some argue that it’s really simple, as you can see from the discussion around my earlier post titled, How Much Does SEO Cost?).

There are no universal standards by which you can fix a ‘rate card’ for SEO services. Keyword analysis, link building and other SEO activities are unique, customized and tailored differently for specific situations. And even among SEO providers, there is a wide range in quality. There are seasoned professionals and there are scammers, amateurs and ignorant practitioners.

But as the person in charge of your company’s SEO, you are the most ‘dangerous’ person involved… because the responsibility for your choices rests on your shoulders! Before you pick the cheapest or most expensive proposal, the limited or more comprehensive one, the one from experienced pros versus an SEO-savvy cousin or friend, be sure to read How Much Does SEO Cost? to understand the nuances and nitty gritty details.

As a specialized service, SEO involves teams of people working behind the scenes. Giving them a small budget practically ties their hands, and you cannot expect stellar results from their restrained effort.

If you are not yet convinced about the synergies involved and how these facets interact together, then don’t be afraid to ask for an SEO pre-analysis, even if it means paying a modest fee for it.  That’s a safe investment and worth more if it convinces you about the real value in adopting an SEO strategy.

Misconceptions about SEO abound, and this excellent book called “The Art of SEO” has really great examples. Some popular myths include:

• SEO goals (“we’ll build you 100 links per month”) matter more than business goals (“we’ll grow your profits by 5%”).
• SEO exists in a vacuum and doesn’t integrate with other parts of the enterprise.
• SEO techniques are better implemented on marketing concepts and product titles, regardless of search volumes and popularity.
• SEO activities can be carried out without need for co-ordination and oversight by a supervisor.
• Leave SEO to the developers (“Trust them, everything will be ok!”).

There are many more in the article, 24 Ways To Make Life Hard For Your SEO Team.

6.  SEO Is Never Too Costly!

Nowhere else in marketing is it likely to pay off by being a contrarian as with choosing the right SEO company. In comparing several companies, you’re often tempted to pick the least expensive pitch, while it may actually be a smart choice to pick the most expensive one!

How? SEO is not a cost. It’s an investment. And even if the highest priced SEO company charges you twice as much as the rest, as a marketing manager or decision maker, you should look deeper into why they are so expensive. What makes them so confident as to pitch you with an offer others would toss into the dust-bin without a second thought?

If the more expensive SEO company helps you reach your financial goals and growth targets in half the time at twice the price, is it really ‘expensive’? Let’s say I offer to pay you $4 for every dollar you give me, how much money would you give me today, assuming you’re convinced I won’t take your cash and run away?

That’s where SEO pre-analysis can help. If the study proves that your market is big enough to drive enough volume, the competition is weak enough for you to fight and win, and your experience with SEO consultants and SEO firms over time shows that you are getting a larger amount of targeted traffic from their efforts. If this traffic converts at a high rate into sales and profit, then the impact on your business from this SEO campaign will be responsible for well more than “4 dollars for one” over time.

Is it time, then, to step back and take a harder look at the allocation of your marketing budget? Should you be looking to reap the potential of SEO, and grab the low hanging fruit within your easy reach?

This isn’t an emotional decision. It’s based on logic and hard data. ‘Costly’ SEO is like buying an automobile. Why does a Ferrari cost more than a VW Beetle? There are many good reasons and similar ones apply to SEO.

7.  SEO Isn’t Icing On The Cake – It’s An Important Ingredient

Ok, now that you’ve spent a fortune on your new website (and it looks great!), the last thing you want is to listen to a consultant who asks you to invest even more money to be visible on search engines.

But Google needs help in understanding your business. SEO that’s effectively woven into your site’s DNA can help showcase your business on search engines in the best possible light.

As an SEO consultant, I get called in by companies that have built a “state of art” website and want SEO slapped on it. But that isn’t how it works. You don’t bake your cake first, and then pour beaten eggs over it, or sprinkle sugar on top. No. You mix those ingredients in with the batter itself.

Taking SEO into consideration even while planning your website structure, content management system (CMS), URL syntax, and Web design gives the best results for your business. It can help you map old URLs to new ones, tailor your landing pages to user intent, lead prospects along a ‘buying slope’ and preserve old rankings that took years of work to achieve.

While an SEO consultant can help you (a lot) even if you started in the wrong order, it will take more time, more effort, more money, and some major restructuring work to get it done later on.

8.  SEO Is More Than Just SEO-Friendly CMS

So your CMS vendor told you it was SEO friendly and optimized? Don’t be fooled. That isn’t all the SEO you need. Not by a long country mile! They should know (by now) that SEO is not only about code. Google doesn’t look for ‘code’, it looks for ‘content’.

There are over 200 ranking factors, and algorithms change many times every year. CMS code is just a fraction of the whole. By providing the right framework for your site, an SEO friendly CMS can help. But it takes a lot more to dominate search engines.

Chief among those ‘other things’ is content. Content is king. The devil is in the detail – keywords, neighborhood, and your overall marketing mix. Your CMS has little to do with these. You wouldn’t buy a great frying pan and food processor, then hope they’ll magically turn you into a Michelin star chef!

SEO isn’t new. Yet many CEOs and managers haven’t formally been taught the importance of good SEO for online business. Yes, CMS vendors may misguide and mislead. After all, this is a highly technical and sophisticated marketing technology, and if you can’t wrap your head around it, you are not alone.

But if you ask the right questions, you’ll win through in the end.

8.  SEO Can Multiply Your Impact

How much did it cost to print your visiting cards? Or your marketing brochures? I’ll bet it wasn’t much compared to how much you invested in your website.

Did you carefully proof-read those cards, brochures or flyers before sending them off to the printing agency (or get someone else to review it for you)? I’ll bet you did.

But you didn’t have a search specialist “proof read” your expensive, infinitely more powerful marketing tool – your website – before you launched it!

Would you design and order all those visiting cards and brochures at considerable expense, and then just lock them up in a shelf? Of course not.

By ignoring SEO, that’s exactly what you’re doing with your fancy new website. A website that could have been viewed by thousands of your best prospects and ideal clients. A website that you’re now leaving to the whim and fancy of Google to rank at its will.

Just because you own top of the line printing equipment, would you print your business cards yourself? No, I’m sure you don’t. You probably order them from a professional company with long experience with printing.

SEO is your digital calling card. It can multiply your impact massively by getting your website in front of targeted eyeballs. There’s good reason to have it handled by professionals who know their job.

They will ensure that your website appeals to the right audience, and gets viewed by a wide segment of it, so that your digital visiting card best performs the critical task your business assigned to it – getting qualified leads and converting them into cash-spending customers.

9.  SEO Keeps You From Missing Out On Free Advertising

Would you trust another agency to write your door sign, or decide what goes on your visiting card? Will you allow your competitor to design your display ads, or decide who sees your storefront?

If you don’t strategically craft your website’s title tags and meta descriptions, that’s what you’re permitting. And that’s not good for business at all. It’s like leaving “lorem ipsum” text on your printed marketing materials!

SEO lets you dictate how your business should be featured on search results. If thousands of your prospects are viewing “random text”, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re letting a wonderful chance to get free advertising slip through your fingers.

The good news is that once you’re aware of this, it’s easy to fix. SEO hands you back the controls, so you can steer your business along the right path.

10.  SEO Leverages Social Sharing

Are you engaged in social media like Facebook? SEO plays an important role here. Content shared by users on social networks are directly related to SEO specific parameters like title tags and meta descriptions. This is what you see when people share posts and stories on their Wall, Google+ profile, or in a tweet or share.

An SEO strategist will help you manage this process, in collaboration with your marketing and communications department. Through SEO you get to control what people read, think and do on social sites and spread through their networks at the speed of light.

11.  SEO Will Help People Find Your Website

Your website is the first point of contact with your audience online. It can generate leads, qualify prospects and attract potential new customers, partners or investors.

But unless people can find it, your website is good for nothing. SEO plays an invaluable role here.

No longer is SEO just about ranking a site in search results, getting more clicks and views, or keeping ‘bounce rates’ optimal. That’s a dangerous misconception. Modern, effective SEO should be rooted in the company’s goals and strategies, and swivels on the psychology of individuals in the target market and segment.

SEO gets your business found, noticed, and loved.

12.  SEO Goes To The Heart Of Your Business

Great SEO demands more than just coding skills and a search-friendly CMS. It’s no longer something a tech-savvy cousin or well-meaning friend can fix up for you over a weekend, for a couple of beers. Professional SEO is serious business.

SEO is like a heart surgery. If organic search is responsible for more than half of your website’s traffic, SEO lies at the heart of your business. Without a good heart surgeon you could die.

Without a specialist handling your SEO, your business could die. Just as you’d hunt for the best heart surgeon to operate on you, you should seek out the best SEO consultant or strategist, rather than trying to do it yourself!

Whoever is responsible for buying SEO at your company must know that it involves marketing and communication, an understanding of business and economics, strategic thought, and the ability to think outside the box, all the while keeping their focus on the business’ overall goals and targets. The individual overseeing your SEO campaigns will become your “extended marketing manager”, financial advisor and more.

Not everyone can do this. And finding a competent person is hard. To casually hand over this challenging task to an in-house Web developer or designer can be unwise. Even though many Web developers and designers are learning more about SEO, it can be a critical mistake to make SEO a “second priority” and install it by ticking boxes on a checklist someone handed you at a seminar!

Sure, you may look on it as a way to cut costs. But this not only “saves you money”,  it also dramatically lowers your profit potential! This is very common, and I see it often in my practice.

Clients view SEO as “shelf-ware” and a “push-button install” that anyone who knows a bit of Web design and HTML coding can fix for them. That’s like using string and duct-tape to fix your car, or your house, when it needs repairs. You’ll risk your safety by doing that. And taking a similar approach to SEO, you’re risking your business (revenue and growth).

13.  SEO Builds Trust Credibility

SEO can make your brand stronger, better and well recognized. The eventual goal should be that, when people search for business critical and relevant keywords and phrases, they should find you at the top of search results. Then, psychology takes over and prospects will believe that you’re the best.

Your website’s title and meta description tags can telegraph a powerful statement that strengthens your brand, while helping communicate a marketing message that’s in line with your strategic business goals.

Then prospects will believe that you’re the best.

These days, everybody “Googles it”. If you’re there, right on top of the SERPs, it goes a long way in boosting your credibility. If you’re right where your customers are, at the right moment, with the right solution, you’ll win big.

But being there is only part of the puzzle. You need more. You must get inside the heads of your prospects. Speak their language. Feel their pain. Present them with a solution. Once you do, your credibility with your audience skyrockets.

14.  SEO Makes You Ubiquitous

We intuitively sense that a #1 ranking indicates top class. An athlete who wins the gold medal is a champion. Silver and bronze winners are runners-up. All the rest are ‘also rans’… and no one cares about them!

Search engine rankings are similar. The top spot on Google SERPs gets 36.4% of all clicks, the #2 spot gets 12.5%, #3 takes 9.5%, and from there it declines quickly. Being at the top of the heap wins you ‘front of mind’ recall and brand awareness and wins you more sales.

If your website doesn’t pop up on the first page of Google for your business critical keywords and phrases, then it’s… “Houston, we have a problem!”

On the off-chance that you’re running a healthy business even without good search engine visibility for your high search volume keywords, then imagine how much more money you could make when you rank for them and reach those extra customers and make more sales. Remember… if you’re not there, your competitors are, ready to take your money!

15.  SEO Helps Build Your Brand

Branding is often complex, costly and chaotic. You throw many things at consumers, hoping enough will stick in their minds and be recalled when it’s time for a purchase. SEO can help accelerate your branding campaign and make you memorable.

When more people visit your site, get familiar with your business, and order from you, then you have more people likely to come back again and tell their friends about you. SEO is an effective way to get this ball rolling, by ranking your website high and attracting a flood of Web traffic.

It can then turn this initial impression into lasting recall through presenting the most relevant and useful information that a visitor is seeking through search engines, thereby earning ‘mind share’ and securing a lasting place in their heart.

16.  SEO Is A Long-Term Strategy

SEO can deliver quick results. It can be effective in the short term and help businesses who need results now. And that’s the primary appeal of SEO to certain types of business owners. But SEO has one serious advantage over other marketing with a ‘short term’ focus… it delivers an ongoing ROI over the long term also.

While PPC and other advertising methods are quick at driving Web traffic, they are also expensive. Also, in the Tamar 2008 Search Attitude report, 91% of survey respondents said they preferred natural search results while looking to buy a product or service online. SEO can ensure you grab these plum spots.

Done correctly, SEO can be long lasting. With proper SEO analysis up front, you can stay on the front page of search results for years, without spending money in the future. Even after you stop your SEO work, your website can still rank high on your chosen keywords, though you’re better off continuing with the services of an SEO consultant or in-house team, or you’ll risk losing your search ranking.

Again, this isn’t an expense, but an investment. A quick and simple calculation will show you how quickly you’ll earn back your investment into effective SEO by way of increased earnings.

17.  SEO Drives Offline Sales

Good SEO starts with smart purchasing decisions. Today, more sales offline are driven by research initiated on the Web. A WebVisible/Nielsen study in 2008 found that 86% of consumers use the Internet to find local businesses from which to buy offline. Yes, in the store!

It’s why most offline businesses cannot afford to ignore online marketing, and also why SEO forms the cornerstone of every offline company’s digital marketing strategy. Your website acts as a never-resting salesperson, working day and night to deliver qualified leads to your business.

These are people actively seeking out solutions that you offer to their most pressing problems and needs. SEO can bring many more of them to your virtual doorstep, for your business to enamor, service and delight.

18.  SEO Attracts Relevant Traffic With High Conversion Potential

SEO is highly targeted, down to minor details. Using keyword analysis, you can find just how big a “market” is, how many people are searching for that exact keyword, how competitive the arena is (in SERPs), and with some keen deductive reasoning, even identify the intent behind keyword searches.

It’s not all intuitive and obvious, and the devil is in the details. That’s why having an insightful SEO consultant can generate huge returns on your marketing dollars spent on optimization.

Web traffic from a good SEO campaign has high conversion potential. And by correctly tapping into ‘searcher intent’, addressing your audience’s concerns and problems, building trust, and convincing prospects that your company is the right one to do business with, you can enjoy a high rate of visitor-to-sales conversion that’s the envy of your industry.

For example, a well-planned SEO campaign for a hotel will reach potential customers looking to take a vacation, lead them to your website, and to the right section that addresses exactly what they’re looking for. In this way, SEO acts like a hybrid of a guide, receptionist, concierge, marketing executive and salesperson.

Without SEO, finding your website in the tourism industry will be hunting for a needle in a haystack. Without fully understanding the intent behind your visitor’s search and their unique and individual needs, the chances of losing the prospect forever is high. Getting them both right means more visitors, and more sales.

19.  SEO Is Measurable Marketing

Every element of your SEO can be measured, evaluated and corrected. By doing this continuously, you can find out your return on every SEO dollar invested.

20. Your SEO Consultant Is A ‘Secret Weapon’

A professional SEO consultant will be a great asset in developing your business. Your SEO consultant can find lucrative keywords and niches with great ROI where you can make money easily, carry out detailed market research and competitive analysis, and help you build content to pull in traffic that will close big deals for you.

A skilled SEO consultant can run in-depth analyses of your business competitors, study their strategy, and more. Your consultant can mock up a “war” and test your strategies in battle against your competition… and if those computations work in your favor, it’s time to go to war!

It can also show you if the strategy is ineffective or the competition too well entrenched to unseat. This will save you money and time wasted in pursuing ownership of that keyword or niche, leaving you to focus energy on more profitable areas. Such market pre-analysis can be priceless to the right company or business.

Remember what Al Ries and Jack Trout highlight in their timeless book, “Marketing Warfare” – Marketing is a war! And just as you won’t think about going to war without conventional weapons, you can’t enter a competitive market armed only with a tommy gun!

At the same time, using old fashioned weaponry will only prolong the suffering and lead to an inevitable defeat. You need powerful, state of art, effective weapons to win. And in the digital battleground, cutting-edge SEO will give you an edge.

21.  SEO Is Cost Effective

Over years, SEO has been proven to be one of the most cost effective forms of online marketing, delivering a higher return for every dollar invested into it over time.

Your Web hosting, design and content creation expenses are similar, whether your site is visited by one hundred people, one thousand, or one million.

You pay the same for each visitor to your website, whether they join your list, buy your product or interact with your brand.

Your marketing costs are identical whether one visitor in a thousand buys from you, or one in a hundred, or one in every five.

Effective SEO can attract thousands, even millions of targeted prospects to your business website, and increase your conversion rates by delivering the exact solution to problems they are facing.

Better still, the ongoing effect and impact of SEO continues far beyond the time you invest into a campaign, because the momentum will sustain for many weeks, often years, making SEO very cost efficient as a marketing choice.

22.  SEO Can Be Outsourced To Run Hands-Free

An SEO company will work 24/7 with SEO, all year long. That’s what gives them an edge over hobbyists. They are up to date with the newest algorithm changes, negative and positive ranking factors, and know what’s needed right now while being proficient at predicting what will be needed in the future.

Also, an SEO company will get the work done faster because they have dedicated teams executing your plan, and will get you to your financial and business targets earlier. Buying cheap SEO services will apparently save you money upfront, but it will also hold you back from making a lot of money. In SEO, there is a pretty good correlation between investment and revenue.

Giving your SEO consultant enough time and the right mandate will add value to other parts of your marketing. It’s how you’ll sow and reap synergies across all your business building activities.

In SEO, there is a pretty good correlation between investment and revenue.

23.  SEO Can Be Made To Work For You

Yes, even if it didn’t work for you before, SEO can be tweaked and twisted into a form that benefits your business. I’ve heard it so often from clients that I simply ignore that objection and offer to prove my point through an inexpensive test.

Most often, the reason why SEO didn’t work is because the company invested too little time or money or resource into it. To blame SEO after neglecting it, not doing it properly, or simply fearing it as “something new” is unfair.

Assuming you did everything right in your implementation of SEO, it could have failed through improper planning. In SEO, failing to plan is planning to fail. That’s why it is important to assign a budget, study the market and search volumes, analyze the competitiveness and anchor your SEO campaign to business goals and strategy. This will prevent the campaign from going off the track.

An expert SEO consultant will steer you away from markets that are too small, competition that is too tough, or where revenue potential is tiny.

You’ll avoid wasting time and money chasing after the wrong targets, like more traffic that won’t convert, or higher rankings that don’t deliver the right prospects. Guesswork can lead to painful and costly surprises. SEO strategy eliminates these surprises and provides constant, reliable results.

24.  SEO Can Convince Even Skeptics

If you’re not quite sure if SEO can deliver on the promise, you can have your SEO consultant simulate or forecast both expenses and projected income before you invest big money into it. Your simulation report will cover competition analysis, market size studies, trends and future predictions, and more data that will help you make an informed decision.

This simulation can be done in a short time (maybe just a few hours, depending on the size of your business, the nature of your service or product, and the competition in your marketplace) and will laser focus your SEO campaign where it will give you the most bang for your buck.

Equally important, it will be great insurance against investing in non-lucrative strategies and tactics. In a marketing war, you cannot afford to squander precious (and limited) resources on wasteful initiatives.  Don’t risk it!

25.  SEO Provides Endless Opportunity

SEO is a continuous process. It’s like the machinery you use to drill for oil, or mine for gold. You’ll need more powerful equipment if you are to go through granite or hard rock, your engines will require frequent maintenance, and the drill-bit may get worn out and need replacing from time to time.

Your SEO is just the same. It will need constant tweaks, reviews and shifts to keep it moving in the right direction, so that it continues to deliver stellar results.

Sometimes the ground may be so hard that you need diamond-tipped drills to break through. And yes, diamond drill-bits are more expensive. But as long as research shows the presence of a vein of gold, or a large reservoir of oil, the drilling must proceed if riches are to be tapped.

In the same way, in tough markets, the SEO you need might be more expensive because of tougher competition. Yet the ‘hidden treasure’ you’re seeking will be more precious, making it worth mining for. Research and analysis by expert SEO advisors can tell you if there’s a gold mine there or not.

That’s how your investment in expensive SEO consultants pays off. At first, they may look bad on your budget sheet, because they appear as a “cost”. But if the impact of their research is to correctly guide you to the most profitable niches and avenues to mine for wealth and profit, then it will multiply your modest investment ten times over, or more!

Good SEO is like a fine-tuned engine. Unless you take good care, it won’t be able to keep going and will burn out. When you embark upon an SEO driven strategy, be prepared to hunker down for a long fight. You’ll take some hits along the way, but you’ll throw harder punches and score more wins. Eventually, that’s what matters.

26.  SEO Beats Paid Traffic

Maybe you already use Google Adwords (or other PPC advertising) very successfully. Even so, it’s paradoxical that SEO, which drives 75% of search traffic, garners less than 15% of an average SEM marketing budget, while PPC that provides barely 25% earns 80% of it.

An exclusive focus on PPC ignores the large hidden component of the iceberg that’s search traffic. Just think about it. If dominating the source of one-quarter of overall traffic gives you such excellent rewards, how much better will they get when you also control the rest?

27.  SEO Is Rooted In User Intent

Where many forms of online marketing are based interrupting a prospect with a sales pitch, SEO is aligned with the intent of a searcher, meeting your audience halfway with a relevant, targeted message that appeals to their interest and delivers a solution they are already seeking.

Being there with the right information and facts may prevent dissemination of myths and false information, become valuable in reputation management, and build a stronger brand.

Good SEO fits the various types of search intent, including:

• Navigational
• Informational
• Transactional
• Commercial

In that respect, SEO is able to generate the highest conversion rate of any targeted digital marketing initiative, which is what makes SEO a high return effort.

Quick, cheap SEO is ineffective and has little lasting value, but healthy SEO costs more but has a longer term impact.

28.  SEO Helps You Capitalize On Weak Competition

SEO can let you reap what your competitors sow! When your competition has a smaller marketing budget, they will make mistakes (or overlook opportunities). Good SEO can help you take advantage of these weaknesses. This makes SEO a smart move for small and medium sized businesses in competitive branches.

Take the case of clueless marketing campaigns that run expensive TV commercials, mass media display advertising, billboards and the like. These ads serve to activate interest in the market niche, in general, or broadly in a product or service category. Usually the company developing these ads are unconnected with search marketing divisions. This leaves a wide open hole for you to fill.

A study by market research firm Ipsos OTX based on a survey of 5,000 US smart phone users found that 71% of users search because of an ad they’ve seen online or offline. When interested people turn to search engines for more information, you can use SEO to position yourself to harvest the traffic.

This is like casting a fish net into waters that are teeming with sea-life and hauling back a rich catch!

The approach does not involve sneaky or stealthy practices such as targeting other business’ brand names. No. These are generic keyword searches sparked off by mass advertising and you can target this traffic through an intelligent mix of organic SEO and pay-per-click ad campaigns (because these are often faster and instant in impact).

The Business Case For SEO

Hopefully, these compelling reasons have convinced you about the value and benefits of an integrated SEO strategy in growing your business and taking your company to new heights of profitability, branding and success.

SEO is like music. The foundations haven’t changed much since the inception. But the application of SEO has evolved over time. I’ve traced some of this complex journey in my article called How Much Does SEO Cost?

On a personal note, I don’t believe a discussion about which marketing tactic is “the best” is of much value. As business owners, CEOs and managers, what we need to focus on is how to reach the best result by talking and working together. We’ll do ourselves a huge favor by not arguing over the most effective technique, but instead exploring how we can successfully integrate the best mix and exploit it to the fullest potential in growing business and revenues.

One last thing to keep in mind. Handing someone a guitar doesn’t mean they’ll start playing great music. If you want great music, hire a rock star. If you want top notch SEO, hire SEO Rock Stars.  Then give them the budget they need to deliver great results.

Image Credit: Crestock.com

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: All Things SEO

Article source: http://searchengineland.com/the-ultimate-list-of-reasons-why-you-need-search-engine-optimization-121215

Ask our experts

Put some effort into making your site appeal to this audience, taking note of the nationalities of your past customers.

We’re a tour operator who provides guided walks and hikes in Sydney’s national parks. We recently engaged an SEO specialist to help with keyword research before relaunching our website www.royalcoastwalks.com.au

However with time, Google Analytics and basic Adwords testing, we can see that our selected keywords are not resonating with our target market.

Our guests are 50/50 international and domestic. We chose to focus only on the Australian market for keyword targeting. We are satisfied with the consultant’s work and the exhaustive process of selecting suitable keywords.

Unlike Americans, Australians are not searching for terms similar to “guided walking tours”. So we dismissed our most accurate keyword phrase. We’ve tried to qualify generic terms, like “walking” with a geographic term, like “Sydney”. Unfortunately, unlike Tasmania and Victoria, Sydney is not (yet!) known for it’s stunning walking tracks so again, very limited traffic.

Maybe “adventure tours”? Adwords testing quickly showed that up to two days walking in Sydney is not a potential customer’s idea of adventure. And then of course we had the great “walking / hiking / bushwalking / trekking” debate. Seeing as we wanted to talk to Australia, we included “bushwalking”, only to discover that despite being one of the highest click-thru rates, it is also the poorest performing conversion and bounce rate, leaving us to assume that Australian’s don’t equate “bushwalking” with a paid experience.

Our most success still comes from TripAdvisor – people who are looking for Sydney tours (not specifically walking) and are excited about getting outdoors. This leaves us staring down the barrel of “things to do in Sydney” or “Sydney day tours” – highly competitive phrases both organically and paid, with non-qualified leads for our niche experience.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

I find your website most appealing; your walks look very interesting and the pricing looks reasonable. Your website Google ranking of four is also quite good so you appear to be doing a lot of things right with bringing people to your site.

I thing you are right that you are dealing with a perception problem in pitching your service to the market: People do not think about bushwalking when they are planning a trip to Sydney, nor do they think of Sydney when they are planning a hiking holiday. And unfortunately people make decisions based on their perceptions rather than on reality.  Changing people’s perceptions is never easy and it can often take quite a lot of dedication, money and time.

You ask for some suggestions so here are some ideas that have occurred to me:

As 50% of your clients are from overseas I would put some effort into making your site appeal to this audience, taking note of the nationalities of your past customers. For example, for North America I would make sure that you are not using terms on your site that Americans could be unfamiliar with, eg. ‘bushwalking’, ‘goody bag’, ‘tucker’. Make sure you include the American spellings and terms in your keywords, where appropriate. Submit your site to google.com and consider getting a .com domain as well.

No doubt, many of your past clients are from non-English speaking countries.  You might consider doing foreign-language versions of your site – or at least do landing pages. You can enlist foreign students from nearby universities to help you here. Some of these students might also be interested to become guides on your tours. Submit these sites (or landing pages) to the Google search engines for these countries.

As you are dealing with a perception problem, I would also put a lot of effort into blogs and social media – I note you are already quite active here. Be aware that the social media that is popular in Australia will not be the same overseas, so adapt your campaign to suit the country you are targeting.

It may also be the case that the perception problem is not nearly so great overseas; for example many Germans may not find the idea of hiking around Sydney to be strange at all.

Finally, whilst internet and social media will play important roles in your overall promotional strategy, you should not be ignoring more conventional means such as for example pitching yourselves to tour organisers and travel agents.

Please note that this information may be regarded as general advice. Accordingly, you should consider the appropriateness of any advice with regards to your own objectives and financial situation before acting on it.

Guy Ward is a business and engineering consultant and a business mentor with Small Business Mentoring Services. SBMS is a not-for-profit association offering SMEs guidance and advice. www.sbms.org.au

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Ask about anything from payroll to Christmas parties, HR to IR, technology to outsourcing.

If you really want to get on with running your business, then leave the problems to us and Ask Our Experts!

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Article source: http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-experts/how-do-i-appeal-to-different-types-of-clients-20120517-1ys6k.html

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Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-rdirectory-upgrade-from-namescape-advances-active-directory-management-with-enhanced-search-interfaces-2012-05-17

Ever since Google rolled out Penguin 1.0 on April 24th, I’ve been heavily analyzing websites that were hit by the update (I’ve now analyzed close to 75 websites hit by Penguin).  Based on my analysis, I have written several posts covering my findings.  In my latest post, An Update from the Over Optimization Front Lines, I explained how important it is for webmasters to know exactly what hit them before taking action.  I know that sounds simple, but I’ve had several companies contact me believing they were hit by Penguin, when in fact, they were hit by Panda.

Panda, Penguin, and The Algorithm Sandwich

After Penguin 1.0 was released, Google also explained that a Panda update was rolled out a few days before Penguin (on 4/19).  Then, to make matters even more confusing, Google rolled out a Panda refresh on 4/27.  To quickly recap, Panda rolled out on 4/19, then Penguin on 4/24, and then a Panda refresh on 4/27.  Yes, that’s essentially an algo sandwich special, with a side of insanity.  As you can imagine, webmasters that aren’t extremely familiar with SEO could very easily think they were hit by Penguin (since that was the primary topic during the time period).

The Danger of Not Knowing

Since Penguin and Panda target two different issues, it’s extremely important to know the exact algorithm update that hit your website.  Panda targets low quality content, thin content, duplicate content, etc., while Penguin targets webspam (and at this point it’s heavily targeting unnatural inbound links).  So, if you incorrectly believe you were hit by Penguin and start addressing links, then you would be wasting your time…  On the flip side, if you incorrectly believe you were hit by Panda and start addressing low quality content, then you could also be wasting your time.

And to make matters worse, both Penguin and Panda will be rolled out periodically.  That means you won’t know if your latest refinements actually made a difference until Pandas and Penguins come knocking on your door again.  And that is exactly why I wrote this post today.  I’ve had several people mistakenly believe they were hit by Penguin, when it was Panda (or vice versa).  And some were already making changes, based on the wrong assessment.  So, don’t prune your links if you were hit by Panda, and don’t gut content if you were hit by Penguin. Know what hit you, and then act.

Working in Google Analytics

1) Check Your Dates

The first thing you should do is launch Google Analytics and drill into Google Organic reporting.  Set the timeframe to April 1st through May 15th.  More on why May is important in a minute.  This will give you a good view of traffic by day during the various algorithm updates.  Remember, Panda was on 4/19, Penguin was on 4/24, and then a Panda refresh rolled out on 4/27.

In the graphs below, you can clearly see that one site was hit by Penguin while the other has been hit by Panda (twice).

A Website Hit by Panda Twice:

A Website Hit by Penguin:

Note: I explained above that you should set your final date to May 15th for a reason.  There has been a lot of chatter recently about another possible Google update.  I first received calls from webmasters on Saturday May, 12th about traffic fluctuations beginning on Friday, May 11th.  Some actually had their traffic bounce back after getting hit by Panda.  Barry Schwartz covered this on Search Engine Roundtable and Google said it was not a Penguin update or a Panda update.  One thing is for sure… there was some type of update.

2) Meeting Panda on a Weekend – Dimension by Keyword and Compare to Past

Now that you know which algorithm update hit you, you can start to determine the keywords that dropped.  Penguin rolled out on a Tuesday, while Panda rolled out on a Thursday, and then followed with a refresh on a Friday!  Since many sites see a natural dip late in the week and on weekends, it’s important to start understanding normal visitor trending, and which keywords potentially were hit.

First, within Google Organic, set the primary dimension to “Keyword”.  This will show you all of the keywords leading to your site from Google Organic during the timeframe.

Next, compare the dates after you were hit by Panda or Penguin with a previous timeframe to compare traffic by keyword.  To do this, click the date in the upper right hand corner of the interface and select a timeframe.  If you were hit by Penguin, select 4/24 to 5/15.  If you were hit by Panda, select 4/19 to 5/15.  Then click the checkbox for “compare to past”.  The default comparison will be the number of days immediately prior to the range you selected.  You can change that by selecting new dates to compare, if needed.

You will now be presented with all of the keywords leading traffic to the site, along with the percentage of increase and decrease (compared to the previous timeframe).  How awesome is that?  See a keyword drop by 75%, it probably got hit.  Then you can dimension that keyword by “Landing Page” to see which webpage got hit.  Spend some time here… the insights you glean could be incredibly valuable to your recovery efforts.

The Not So Obvious – Google Webmaster Tools and Filters

Although a lot of webmasters are familiar with Google Analytics, I find there are still many who don’t have Google Webmaster Tools set up.  As I mentioned in my post about Avoiding SEO Disaster During a Website Redesign, it’s essential to have GWT set up for your domains.  There is a wealth of information directly from Google… including messages from the Search Giant about the SEO health of your sites.  And yes, Google Webmaster Tools can help you determine which algorithm update hit your site.

1) Search Query Data

There is a tab in Google Webmaster Tools titled “Traffic” that holds a link for “Search Queries”.  This tab reveals the impressions and clicks for queries that returned your webpages in the search results.  Yes, you can see impression data and click data directly from Google properties.  While Google Analytics relies upon a click to your site, this data shows you how many impressions your content is receiving for queries on Google.  For our purposes, we can see the surge or dip in impressions and clicks as the various algorithm updates rolled out.

As you can imagine, this is a great way to see the impact of a certain algorithm update.  The default view is 30 days back, but you can now select a greater time range (up to 90 days).  Again, let’s check April 1st to May 15th to view impressions and clicks.

A Sample Search Queries Report in Google Webmaster Tools (Unaffected Website):

At this point, you can start to identify impression and click issues. If you were hit by Penguin, then you might see a steep drop-off on 4/24, and then lower levels beyond.  If you were hit by Panda, then you might see a steep drop-off on 4/19, and then again on 4/27 (if you were hit by both updates). Here is data I exported from Google Webmaster Tools for a site hit by Panda twice.

2) Focus on the Problem – Filter by Web

During my analysis of sites hit by Penguin and Panda, I noticed something interesting in Google Webmaster Tools.  For certain sites, using the filters available helped some webmasters hone in on their problem.  There is a “filters” button in the upper left-hand corner of the Search Queries report.  This lets you filter your results based on a number of criteria.  For our purposes, let’s filter by Google property.  Click the dropdown that’s labeled “Search” and choose “Web”.  That will filter your data by web-only searches, and will exclude Images, Video, Mobile, etc.

After doing this, you might see a more pronounced drop during 4/19, 4/24, and 4/27.  It will also enable you to view keywords that dropped from web search without mixing other Google properties in, which can skew the results.  For example, I analyzed several sites that actually received more impressions from Google Images after being hit by Penguin and Panda! Go figure… Removing that data provided a clearer view of the problem.

3) Export Your Data

Although Google Webmaster Tools recently rolled out an update enabling you to view up to 90 days of search query data, you can’t go back further… That means you should export the current data in order to archive it, work with it, and analyze it.  You will notice two buttons labeled “Download this table” and “Download chart data” under the trending graph.  Export your data now.

Summary – You Must Know the Problem in Order to Address It

Based on how Google rolled out Penguin and Panda recently, I’m finding it’s common for webmasters to be confused about which algorithm update hit their websites.  Penguin 1.0 and the latest Panda updates were so close that it’s easy to believe you were hit by one, when in fact, it could have been the other.  Use the techniques I listed in this post to help you determine which update really hit your site.  Then form a plan of attack knowing which cute animal you are dealing with.  Good luck.

Article source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/penguin-or-panda-how-to-determine-which-google-algorithm-update-impacted-your-website/43751/

As campaigns mature, keywords evolve from experiments to proven revenue drivers. Remembering to add a keyword to Bing after a successful trial in Google or remembering to expand a new top performing keyword across its other match types is easier said than done.

With so much focus these days on the next best thing — generating the most compelling creative or discovering the next diamond-in-the-rough keyword — search marketers often ignore the keyword gaps that slowly accumulate over time.

Maintaining publisher and match type keyword parity is one of the most important campaign management strategies available to a search marketer. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most difficult strategies to scale and implement successfully. Sifting through hundreds of thousands of keywords and toggling between multiple publishers to identify keyword disparities can prove to be a daunting task.

Today, we’ll discuss several best practices for maintaining keyword parity across match types and publishers. We’ll also help identify where potential keyword gaps reside in your account and provide the necessary tools for filling them.

Publisher Parity

Imagine you’ve just added a new keyword into your Google account that’s expected to acquire more revenue for your business. Now two weeks, 100 clicks and 10 conversions later, your keyword is a hit. In the fog of excitement, you’ve decided to research additional keyword expansion opportunities, neglecting to explore the full potential of your newly discovered revenue driver.

Adding your new, proven keyword into your Bing accounts has slipped your mind. As day-to-day optimization strategies take your account forward, this and other keyword gaps continue to accumulate. Unfortunately, many search marketers fail to maintain keyword parity across publishers, even when the failure to do so can result in missed revenue opportunities.

Locating publisher keyword gaps can prove to be a daunting task. Implementing tracking prior to tackling keyword expansion addresses the parity issue at its core. (Third-party solutions, like Marin Software, can help track and report on these keywords at scale.) Take detailed notes on when, where and why these keywords were added to an account. These notes are essential to assessing performance and critical for locating revenue driving keywords to copy across publishers.

In order to retroactively assess publisher parity, download a keyword performance report and apply an Excel pivot table to compare publisher keyword sets by key performance indicators.

Once you’ve identified the gaps, add these keywords to the appropriate publisher on a weekly or monthly basis. Remember to set competitive bids, generate compelling creative and deploy proper negative keywords.  Missing out on an important negative keyword when achieving parity can result in reduced effectiveness for the keywords you add.

Match Type Parity

Ensuring match type parity by adding keywords across all three match types is a common best practice. This can be approached in two different directions—expanding from broad to phrase to exact match type or from exact to phrase to broad match type.

Copying successful exact and phrase match keywords to broad match type is a quick and easy approach for reaching a broader audience and discovering new keyword opportunities. However, the resulting increase in traffic doesn’t always correspond to an increase in performance. Be cautious when expanding keywords to broad match type and aggressively mine for negative keywords.

Improving keyword efficiency often requires the expansion of broad match keywords to phrase and exact match type. This strategy is an effective means of segmenting keyword performance. Keep in mind that broad match keywords already capture the traffic for its phrase and exact match counterparts. Consequently, cost and conversion metrics are attributed to a single keyword.

Maintaining match type parity is a simple way of segmenting keyword performance by match type, allowing for the implementation of match type specific bids, creative or both.

Match Type Silos

Consider this common scenario. A keyword on Google is active across all three match types. However, the broad match bid is set higher than the phrase and exact match bids.

As a result, the broad match keyword cannibalizes impressions and clicks that might best be served on and captured by the phrase and exact match keyword. This undesired behavior creates a reporting and optimization nightmare; performance data for the phrase and exact match queries is attributed to the broad match keyword.

To properly expand keywords across broad, phrase and exact match types, and segment performance based on match type, match type silos must be deployed. To implement match type silos, start by creating a separate group for each keyword match type. Within the broad match group, add the phrase match negative keyword. Within the phrase match group, add the exact match negative keyword.

Match type silos are not only easy to implement, but ensure that publishers properly match your keywords to user search queries. Furthermore, the segmentation of keywords by match type provides greater visibility into performance, resulting in a more effective reporting and bidding strategy.

As you work through keyword expansion opportunities, be mindful of keyword gaps and maintain publisher and match type parity. Once you’ve filled these gaps, remember to optimize. Setting appropriate keyword bids, generating relevant creative and researching negative keywords are just a few strategies to in mind.

What has and hasn’t worked for your campaigns when it comes to maintaining parity across publishers and match types? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Enterprise SEM

Article source: http://searchengineland.com/accelerating-revenue-growth-with-keyword-parity-121540

Next up for me at SAScon is the Advanced PPC panel moderated by Yahoo’s Jon Myers.

Duncan Fisher, Latitude – Quality Score

First speaker is Duncan Fisher from Latitude and he’s talking about Quality Score (QS). The Quality Score of your keywords is a vital aspect of your AdWords campaign, ensuring only the most relevant ads are shown on Google’s search results. It’s a ‘complex mathematical formula’ scoring the relevance of your ad landing page to the keyword you advertise on. From the advertiser’s point of view it helps determine how much you end up paying per click.

The average Quality Score of your campaign can be an indicator of its health. Duncan shows an example where 85% of a campaign’s keywords have a QS of 7 or higher, which shows the campaign is in pretty good shape on average. When digging deeper in to the data, however, he shows that for this campaign 63% of impressions come from keywords with a QS of 6 or lower, which means there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Duncan advises to dive deep in to the data to get the most useful insights. Focus on the ad group level instead of taking campaign-wide averages. He lists a number of ways to improve your Quality Score, highlighting a few approaches such as deciding if a keyword is relevant enough, review actual search queries, and creating smaller ad groups.

Polly Pospelova, Fuse8 – Improve ROI

Next up is Polly Pospelova from Fuse8, who’s talk is on improving the ROI of your PPC campaigns. She starts off by explaining how your ad’s position in AdWords – Ad rank – is a result of the “CPC bid X Quality Score” formula. So boosting your QS is a great way to improve your campaign’s ROI without having to increase your CPC.

Polly says improving your landing page is very important, as this can have a big impact on your QS. However on a large scale, for 1000′s of keywords and ad groups, this is hard to do. Fuse8 has a product that solves this problem by adapting the landing page dynamically depending on the keyword that is used to find it.

Gilli Goodman, Google UK – AdWords Quick Wins

Last speaker in this panel is Google UK’s Gilli Goodman. She highlights a series of Google tools and products that can help make quick wins in your PPC campaigns. She starts by explaining automated rules for bid management in AdWords, which can help make campaign management much easier. She highlights the capabilities of automated rules and gives a whole range of examples of how you can use them to get maximum mileage from your AdWords campaigns.

Next Gilli talks about remarketing – what it is, and how you can make optimal use of it – and mobile – a hot topic at this year’s SAScon that is part of many speakers’ presentation. She has some good tips on making the best use of these strategies.

All together a solid session for PPC practitioners with some great tips to improve your campaigns.

Posted in SASCON | Tags: adwords, Mobile, PPC

Using The New Adwords Landing Page Algorithm to Improve Onpage SEO

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Its been a few weeks since Google announced changes to the Adwords Quality Score algorithm, and although PPC isnt my main discipline, I can certainly see the effect that update has had on the five PPC accounts Im involved with. Some keywords that previously had a Quality Score (QS) of 5+ have dropped to aread more

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Google AdWords Filters and How to Use Them

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This blog post contains a detailed list of important Google AdWords Filters and how you should be using them when you are optimising any AdWords Account.

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Ads in a QualityScore World #seslondon

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QualityScore is definitely one of the most important Adwords metrics. In this session at SES London 2012, titled Ads in a QualityScore World, Andrew Goodman discusses QualityScore with Ann Stanley of Annica Digital Solutions and Dan Robbins of Carat.

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Article source: http://www.stateofsearch.com/sascon-day-1-advanced-ppc-techniques/

If search engine traffic from Google matters to your business, then there is little chance that you haven’t heard of the recent Google Penguin update. What exactly is this?

Apparently, on April 24, 2012 Google activated new ranking algorithm changes to take care of websites and blogs that indulge in:

• Excessive link building with no regard for quality
• Deceptive doorway pages
• Lots of keyword stuffing
• Publishing lots of meaningless content just to get traffic from search engines

Which, basically, means all websites that don’t comply with Google’s SEO guidelines.

In terms of improving search quality, this is a good change. It is also good for businesses and entrepreneurs legitimately trying to get good rankings without the headache of competing with websites that try to game the system.

But, as happens with most “simple” changes like this, there has been some collateral damage. Although Google claims that the new update has affected just 3 percent of websites, there have been multiple declarations across the internet of it causing a bloodbath. People are even going to the extent of laying off their employees and considerably scaling down their businesses.

Are you one of those negatively affected by the Google Penguin update? If you are, you can salvage the situation by taking corrective measures. If you’re not, you should also take preventive measures so that you do not get caught in the fray the next time something like this happens.

How do you do this? With effective content writing, of course.

What is effective content writing, and how does it help?

Effective content writing provides the true value. It is not done simply to improve your search engine rankings. Although there is nothing wrong in trying to improve your rankings, the problem comes up when you write and publish content for that purpose alone.

The days of cheap and low-cost SEO articles are rapidly going away — thankfully. With its successive updates, Google is trying to push forward content that really deserves its place in the ranking index. In turn, this means pushing down content that doesn’t carry much value: Content that just rambles on will not be ranked well no matter how brilliantly it has been “optimized.”

So how do you create effective content that Google and other search engines love? Here are a few things you can keep in mind while creating content for your website or blog:

• Use your keywords only when needed: Keywords are great, but don’t over-use them because this will make your content reek of spam. For instance, if I needlessly go on repeating “great content writer” everywhere on my website, not only will I fail to rank well for the phrase, I might even get penalized and removed from the rankings altogether. Use keywords but only when there is a relevant context. Don’t worry too much about keyword-optimizing your copy – just focus on quality and value.
• Make your content social: Create your content in such a manner that it gains some popularity on social media and social networking websites. This way you don’t have to depend solely on Google for all your traffic. Create compelling and meaningful headlines. Provide content that is bang on target. Develop an original style and focus on quality rather than quantity.
• Create a resource that is highly useful: An ability to write and publish content is a great privilege. There is so much you can teach and communicate to your audience. Make use of it. Whether you share your own information, or gather it from the internet, make sure you create content that addresses topics your audience is interested in and will have a use for. This will naturally make it irresistible for search engines, bloggers, and social media users, alike.
• Create content for other websites and blogs: Prepare an editorial calendar for writing articles and guest blog posts that can be published on websites and blogs other than your own. This helps you gain new exposure and earn quality backlinks – just make sure you only offer your content to trusted and reputable content publishers.
• Create engaging content for online forums and blog comment sections: Online forums are still alive and kicking, and so are blog comment communities. Great interactions go on at these places. There is a misconception that you interact on online forums and blogs just to get backlinks, and when you don’t get those link benefits, there is no use leaving comments there. Yes, sometimes you get some link juice, but even if you don’t, the added exposure you get — and the potential for greater traffic — is well worth the effort.
• Regularly publish a newsletter: Newsletter publishing still rules the roost, as evidenced by the many quality email marketing newsletter publishing services that have been cropping up. It is the best way of keeping in touch with your readers and subscribers, and once you have built yourself a mailing list of a few thousand subscribers, you can instantly broadcast your ideas and offers to these people without having to rely upon search engine traffic.
• Maximize your conversion rate: Re-examine your content and see how well it is working to convert your website visitors into customers. A higher conversion rate can compensate for low traffic periods, so look for ways to measure, analyze, and improve your content wherever necessary to make sure that those who do find your site (through search or through other means) are getting what they want from the experience.