It's interesting how potential clients have preconceived notions about which
aspects of search engine marketing have the most value. In fact, they tend
to fall into two camps that are 180° apart. The first camp believes
completely in the value of pay-per-click marketing (PPC). It's easy to
understand why. PPC provides immediate and measurable benefits. The ROI of
PPC marketing is obvious. This group doesn't understand why it s necessary
to bother doing SEO. The second camp believes the only way to go is SEO.
Clicks are free and the branding benefits of high rankings have been well
documented.
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The right answer is that they are both valuable. Each has its benefits
and when you can afford to, you should implement both.
Pay-per-Click PPC makes sense if you want immediate benefits and like the
idea of paying for performance. SEO provides branding benefits and
longer-term will provide an ROI that is compelling. But unlike PPC, SEO
revenue results aren t as directly measurable and manageable.
Pay per click (PPC) gives you the ability to have complete control over
your search traffic. With PPC programs you select the keywords and write the
listings. You control where you re listed and what the listing says. You
decide what your budget is and can adjust your spend rate based on results
or events (e.g. announcements, promotions).
By tracking results from a PPC campaign, you can build up a knowledge
base with respect to your business, including which messages perform the
best, which search terms have the best conversion rates, and what
destination URL is best for specific users to land on. Over time, this
knowledge can help you to improve and define your business.
One of the greatest attractions of PPC is the ability to easily track
clicks and costs allowing you to understand your ROI from a specific
marketing initiative. This gives you confidence to spend money and drive
volume. You may have thought that spending $5,000 a month on a PPC campaign
is way outside your budget, but once you measure the ROI, you may realize
that it s well worth the investment.
Search Engine Optimization
So, if PPC is so great why bother with SEO? Basically, because you will
be missing out on a large number of potential clicks. How large? A number of
recent studies have demonstrated that there are still a lot of users that do
not click on the "paid" listings but rather will search through the regular
editorial search results. The accompanying chart shows that 60% of the
search users prefer (some exclusively) organic over paid listings. The only
way to get optimized (high) rankings in these regular editorial results is
through an effective SEO program. In most cases, once you have good
positioning in the regular search results, you will continue to receive free
traffic. Again, based on data from a number of marketers the increase in
traffic due to SEO averaged 73%. Consider search engine optimization the
same as you would word of mouth advertising or public relations. It s
exposure that comes with a very high degree of credibility and trust.
Traffic coming from traditional ! search listings tends to have high
conversion rates.
There's another advantage to traditional search listings. They are
considered unbiased and non-commercial. Traditional search performs very
well at certain points in the buying process. When consumers are gathering
information about a purchase, they show a marked preference for traditional
search listings. When they are ready to buy online, they seem to have less
bias against paid placement listings and their likelihood to click on one of
these listings increases.
The Dollars and Cents of SEO
Perhaps the most compelling reason not to exclude SEO from your online
marketing strategy comes down to dollars and cents. In an attempt to
quantify the business case for SEO I have gone back and done some analysis
on three recent SEO engagements and the results they achieved. I chose
ecommerce clients that we had optimized and reviewed their average sales
before and after SEO was implemented. In two of the situations the only
change made was the optimization of the site. In another the optimization
occurred at the same time we implemented a PPC campaign. In the first two
cases the store sales rose 64% and 75% after the SEO was implemented. In the
third case the store revenue actually went up a staggering 169%, but if you
back out the sales that were a result of the PPC campaign, the store revenue
that could be attributed to SEO improved by 49%. In other words, the average
improvement in store revenue that was apparently due to SEO was 62%.
Can we be sure that all of this was a result of SEO? No. There could have
been product, seasonal and other effects that contributed. But I think it's
safe to say that there was a significant increase that resulted directly
from the SEO. The bottom line: search optimization has a real and measurable
impact on traffic, conversions and revenue (or lead generation) improvement.
Given that these clicks begin to approach free after amortizing the cost of
SEO over time, the ROI for SEO is compelling. Added to the branding benefits
no marketer or business owner should doubt the value of search engine
optimization.
About the Author
Scott Smigler has been an evangelist for a serious, ROI-based focus on
the online channel since he founded Exclusive Concepts (http://www.exclusiveconcepts.com\)
in 1997. Exclusive Concepts provides integrated online marketing strategies,
Internet brand consulting, search engine marketing campaigns and
results-oriented web sites for hundreds of clients that range in size from
small ecommerce firms to public companies.
June 14, 2005
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