Content Writing For SEO Warning
If you have ever outsourced some of your writing to content writers or content writing services before you have almost certainly run into the issue of writers who submit what is essentially stolen content, or content that has been taken directly from another site and spun and submitted as unique and original.
How the Google Panda Update Has Changed the Game
It used to be the case that such content at worst would just not rank well in Google (and you’d lose your money if you couldn’t get a refund), but since the recent Google Panda update, publishing this sort of low value content has serious consequences for the rest of the site it’s being published on.
I recently found out one of my writers had recently submitted content that had been virtually ripped off from another site which prompted me to reinforce the seriousness of this as a warning to all writers:
It has recently been brought to my attention that there have been instances where content has been copied from other sources and submitted for editing and publication on our sites. This isn’t acceptable.
However, after reviewing the content writing task document it was apparent to me that I probably could have reinforced this point more. So I thought I would just take a moment to explain just how important it is that all of the content produced for sites is high-value, informative and 100% unique and original.
Duplicate content does not help our sites in any way as we are looking to produce high quality, informative content for visitors to help generate traffic for our site is via search engines like Google. Traditionally duplicate content has never ranked in Google, so there has always been little incentive to use it outside of bulking up a site to provide alternative sources of information for visitors.
However, with the recent Google Panda update not only does Google not rank this duplicate content, but Google now also penalises entire sites for using it, meaning there is absolutely no incentive to publish duplicate content. So publishing duplicate content on our sites may actually do irreparable damage to the Google rankings of all the site’s pages.
Even using small amounts of duplicate content (even when we have permission and citing the original source) will incur a significant penalty from Google these days. So going forward it is critical that nothing that you publish be copied from anywhere else.
As for using other people’s content when we don’t have permission to republish it on our sites (which is stealing) this is completely unacceptable. The owners of that content has the right to file a DMCA request against us which may lead to our host shutting down our sites as well as Google AdSense account ban. So this is a very serious issue!
I’d also like to clarify at this point that spinning articles so they “appear unique” isn’t considered high quality content. Spinning one article never produces high quality, informative, readable content that is valuable for readers. As such submitting spun articles is completely unacceptable.
For those of you that are wondering what 100% unique and original articles means exactly – it means that the article should be written entirely by you (every word) and should be the result of thorough research (high quality articles require consulting multiple sources) to produce a balanced and informed opinion on a specific topic.
If you have submitted any articles that may contain content that is copied (even partially) it is critical that you let me know now so that I can go review the content and make sure that we are not liable.
The Google Panda update, if nothing else, was shot across the bows of sites that host mass produced, low quality content. If you have any writers or outsource to content writing services for SEO purposes now is the time to re-emphasise the importance of producing high quality content that is designed for visitors as much as it is for search engines.
Cheap SEO: Not As Cost Effective As You Might Think
Online business success is often determined by its visibility on the major search engines. Good search engine rankings generate more visitors which produces more sales. Search engine optimisation or SEO for short is the process of optimising a site to achieve better rankings in the search engines.
Whilst many SEO firms and services are reputable, increasingly, potential SEO customers need to be wary of cheap SEO services which don’t offer genuine longer term value. The rising demand for SEO services coupled with the budget constraints of small business has produced the emergence of relatively automated, basic and cheap SEO packages.
Despite being attractively priced, cheap SEO services often produce questionable results, which may not be both sustainable in the long run and not detrimental to the website’s integrity in the eyes of the search engines. Getting a good ranking in all major search engines is time consuming and requires a great deal of expertise and often quality content development. It’s well understood that any time consuming task is going to cost more. Under these circumstances, the concept of cheap SEO is very sceptical.
Automated SEO Often Lacks Quality
Often these cheap SEO packages centre around automated link building, automated directory and search engine submissions, optimising only the homepage of a site, no content development and few quality inbound links. For the most part they rely on targeting unproductive keywords that have relatively low levels of competition in online markets at the moment. However low levels of competition won’t be present forever, thus the need for a more long term strategy that is focused on quality and not low quality ranking factors that the search engines themselves are likely to discount in the future.
Unfortunately, any way you look at it, SEO takes time. It’s process should include keyword research and keyword selection based on potential value, content analysis and development, onsite reconstruction as well as optimisation, quality link building as well competitor analysis. Also, SEO isn’t not an overnight process, it takes time before you’ll get to see the results of your efforts, due to the time it takes for the search engines to recognise the changes in both your site and the new sites that are hopefully now linking to you. So beware of companies that talk about getting result within two weeks with their cheap SEO methodologies.
The higher price does not mean the availability of a better service all the time; however, real SEO approaches for which much effort is required are rarely offered by cheap SEO companies. Indeed, these cheap SEO methodologies are not the most effective ones and a number of reasons can be established in support of the view. These include:
- Quality SEO companies and consultants will focus on long term value.
- Often an ongoing SEO commitment is required because the reality is the web is always being updated and as such the ranking change all the time along with your competitors online marketing strategies.
- Many cheap SEO packages utilising automated techniques, which search engines are likely to discount for in the future.
- Attempts to manipulate search rankings via automated process can result in your website being penalised in the search engines, so cheap SEO services might end up costing you dearly.
- SEO is not as simple as the application of the right keywords in the right places. An expert SEO consultants should be engaged, they will cost more but they will have the experience to help you avoid the pitfalls as well as give you the advantage over your competitors. Remember that small improvement in rankings can lead to exponential improvements in your traffic.
- Look for an SEO that actually has a presence in the SEO industry, rather than just offering cheap SEO services without any industry reputation.
In Australia, you will find a number of renowned SEO companies in all major cities including Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and others. Many of these companies offer end-to-end SEO solutions. However, before hiring their SEO services, you should do some research work on which will definitely bring an effective result for you. Feel free to ask potential SEO firms what differentiates them from the competition, and if their biggest point of differentiation is “price” it might be worth moving on.
Brisbane SEO Company’s Website SEO Review
This post is a part of the Best SEO Company website review series. It contains reviews of 10 SEO company websites that ranked well for the search term “SEO Brisbane”. To review other city results please visit:
- Sydney SEO Company
- Melbourne SEO Company
- Brisbane SEO Company
- Perth SEO Company
- Adelaide SEO Company
- Gold Coast SEO Company
Top 5 Organic Search Results for ‘SEO Brisbane’ – Company Website Review
Dejan SEO : 
The website is simply design and makes good use of basic SEO elements. It’s quick loading, with good informative images and original content. However, they could have made better use of their title tags. Also, by adding newsletter subscription and free analysis report, and prominent calls to action they have no doubt have a reasonable conversion rate. Overall, this site is well optimized from both the SEO point of view and conversion point of view.
SEO Works : 
This firms SEO team have done well utilising all the major ranking elements in it. The biggest thing that the website lacks is a focus on conversion or at least making their contact information prominent. As it stands their contact details are in the footer of the website. Adding a prominent contact form along with newsletter subscription and free analysis report would increased their conversion rate, but they do have great SEO.
Search Tempo : 
This website has a simple design and loads quickly. They make good use of anchor text in their navigation, yet use of title tags and keywords in URLs is poor. Their contact information is visible though they haven’t utilised a quality call to action or offered any incentive for visitors to contact them.
Reload Media : 
This website has a very flash/graphic based design though still makes reasonable use of major SEO techniques. They have made appropriate use of the title tags and alt tags. They could have improved their conversion optimization by making contact numbers and forms more readily available and prominent.
Organic With SEO :
This website has made appropriate use of alt tags but the use of title tags isn’t ideal. The anchor text used for the international navigation is also isn’t great. Though with that said the site is laid out reasonably clearly with some calls to actions, but their phone number isn’t even on their homepage.
Top 3 Local Search Results for ‘SEO Brisbane’ – Company Website Review
Get More Traffic : 
This site lacks the many of the essential elements of SEO and there are uses of iframe, which is not great for search engine optimization. Moreover, the website doesn’t have any back links. Though with that said they make use of very impressive conversion optimization techniques. So whilst the SEO might be poor it’s likely that their website is still quite successful.
Search Tempo :
This website has already been featured in the organic listing above which is a good sign that a SEO firm that knows what they are doing. However their site still has some obvious SEO flaws.
SEO Hub :
Whilst the site utilizes most of the major elements of SEO it definitely could have made better use of them. However for a site that has been around for awhile there are relatively few back links. In addition to this calls to action and contact information are difficult to find.
Top 2 Sponsored Links Results for ‘SEO Brisbane’ – Company Website Review
Web Marketing Experts :
This website has made good use of the major SEO elements such as proper use of alt tags and meaningful anchor texts in navigation. It could have made better use of title tags and images rather than flash which has caused high load times. That said they it’s likely they have opted for this to improve conversion rates.
Web Marketing Experts :
This site has used title tags well and also makes use of good anchor text in their navigation. However the contact details are in the footer, which would be missed by a lot of visitors. Also they don’t offer any incentives like a free analysis report for visitors to contact them which would produce a better conversion rate.
Sydney SEO Company’s Website SEO Review
This post is a part of the Best SEO Company website review series. It contains reviews of 10 SEO company websites that ranked well for the search term “SEO Sydney”. To review other city results please visit:
- Sydney SEO Company
- Melbourne SEO Company
- Brisbane SEO Company
- Perth SEO Company
- Adelaide SEO Company
- Gold Coast SEO Company
Top 5 Organic Search Results for ‘SEO Sydney’ – Company Website Review
SEO Sydney :
Despite the benefit of the exact match domain name, this site is very simple and integrates the major elements of SEO. Things they could have done better include; make better use of title tags, add internal links within content and built a larger link profile. Overall it’s reasonably well optimised from an SEO perspective. From an internet marketing perspective their design doesn’t facilitate converting organic traffic into leads and they should focus on greater conversion optimisation.
SEO Sydney Blog : 
Site didn’t load properly when this website SEO review was being conducted. That’s normally a bad sign. From what is visible, they are employing some reasonable SEO, but they lack a significant link profile. Their ranking for “SEO Sydney” is most likely being significantly supported by their keyword rich domain rather than great SEO.
SEO Works :
These guys looks very good with good SEO of all the major ranking elements in addition to a well featured local listing (see below). The only things detracting from their score is arguably the excessive use of links on their homepage and the under utilisation of their alt tags. From an internet marketing perspective a point of concern is their over-focus on SEO at the expense of conversion optimisation.
Just Web :
This firm seems to be much more focused on web design than SEO. They are integrating a lot of flash and have spammed loads of links into their footer, which isn’t a great SEO nor a long term strategy.
SEO Sydney Services :
This is a pretty simple site design (which is often better when it comes to SEO). Though they have keyword stuffed the crap out of their meta keyword tag which is a risky strategy given that the major search engines have confirmed they don’t give any weighting to meta keywords anymore. They also haven’t utilised any header tags within their content and lack inbound links. Their ranking for “SEO Sydney” is most likely being supported by their exact match domain name.
Top 3 Local Search Results for ‘SEO Sydney’ – Company Website Review
NetStarter :
Being the first site being listed in the local listings is a great achievement. Though the SEO of this site is lacking. It’s inundated with flash elements and these guys look to be much more about web design rather than SEO.
SEO Works :
SEO Works was already featured in the organic section of this review but has also managed to be ranked second in the local listings which is a great achievement and is a good sign that this SEO firm knows what they are doing.
D SEO :
A very simple and small site. The site doesn’t make good use of the title tags, keyword integration or image integration. The internal navigation is not ideal either. Though the biggest problem is the sheer lack of inbound links!
Top 2 Sponsored Links Results for ‘SEO Sydney’ – Company Website Review
Arrow Internet Marketing :
Ironically this SEO company is actually located in Melbourne yet they are ranking first in the Google sponsored listings! The company’s website has good SEO, though may have over optimised their site at the expense of simplicity and conversions.
Web Marketing Experts :
Once again another Melbourne SEO company has outranked the Sydney SEO companies in the sponsored search results. Their onpage SEO isn’t great; they use too much flash and have a poor internal linking structure. However it’s likely the sacrifices in SEO are more than compensated for with a higher conversion rate (which is was businesses are really interested in). In addition to this they have a very large link profile allowing their site to rank well organically despite this review being due to their sponsored listing.
Best SEO Company Websites – Top SEO From Brisbane to Perth
When it comes to hiring SEO companies most businesses find it difficult to distinguish between quality SEO services and the smooth talking salesman. Unfortunately SEO is quite a refined art where the principles are simple, but if these simple principles are applied to the wrong degree the results won’t be improved search engine rankings rather the delisting of your site from the rankings. So it’s vital you hire an SEO expert or company that knows what they are doing.
If you are in the market for an SEO company I highly recommend reading our 21 Signs a SEO Company is Bad at SEO before you start reviewing candidates.
In addition to the above article I’ve decided to try and shed a little bit of light on some local SEO companies via a website SEO audit on SEO companies that claim to be SEO experts.
So why do an SEO audit on SEO company websites? It’s a simple case of seeing if these SEO companies practice what they preach and in some case see if they are even aware of what SEO best practices are.
SEO Company Website Review Process
So what I’ve done is a search in Google using the term “SEO Location” and selected 10 of the websites that have ranked well when searching for that term. So for example I entered the search term “SEO Brisbane” (a term all Brisbane SEO companies should be aspiring to rank for) and have chosen to review the first five organic rankings, the first three local listings and the top two sponsored results.
It’s important to note that given that these SEO companies made the list of SEO websites to be reviewed says that they must have been doing something right to be among the most prominent sites when searching for the popular SEO keyword phrases. Nonetheless some of the results are quite interesting, and they are outlined in the posts listed below:
- Sydney SEO Company
- Melbourne SEO Company
- Brisbane SEO Company
- Perth SEO Company
- Adelaide SEO Company
- Gold Coast SEO Company
Please note the following:
- There are SEO companies in Sydney that aren’t included as they haven’t optimised their site for the term “SEO Sydney” but they should have.
- This list was derived using Google International. Results may vary based on search preferences and location.
- The companies have been listed in the order they appeared on Google.
- I have also commented on likely conversion optimisation performance of the site given that it’s not all about getting traffic.
21 Signs A SEO Company Is Bad At SEO
Following on from our Best SEO Companies series, I thought it appropriate to talk about how you can spot a bad SEO company.
- The SEO company contacted you via email, phone or mailer despite their supposed skills with search engine optimisation!
- The SEO company offers “instant” or “quick” results. Above board SEO takes time. One caveat would be in instances where your website already has an extensive link profile in comparison to the competition, but poor onpage SEO. In these rare cases some ranking improvement can be achieved quickly. In the vast majority of cases SEO campaigns often take many months.
- All the SEO company talks about is keyword integration, keyword density and inserting keywords into meta tags. Keyword stuffing worked well a decade ago, there is a lot more to SEO these days.
- They avoid the topic of link building (or worse still don’t offer any link building within their packages). Building links is where SEO’s earn their worth.
- Their link building campaign is just directory submissions and trading links with hundreds of irrelevant sites. These sorts of links aren’t of great value in the eyes of Google.
- The SEO company tries to bamboozle you with statements like “we’ll submit your site to over 1000 search engines!” The vast majority of your search engine traffic will come from a handful search engines which have probably already indexed making search engine submission redundant.
- The SEO firm always talks top 10 and tries to impress you with the idea of being ranked in the top 10 for three word phrases – Read Google CTR – A good SEO firms will compile keyword reports and will work with you to select keywords to target based on a combination of value, potential traffic and present competition, and should be aiming to rank as high as possible (hopefully first).
- The SEO firm guarantees everything unconditionally. At the end of the day Google is an entity unto itself. So no one can honestly guarantee anything and when they do they often are just guaranteeing worthless results.
- SEO firms that talk about “Google PageRank” too much or make promises about improving your PageRank. The reality is PageRank is trivial when compare to achieving good rankings. That should be the focus of the SEO firm.
- They don’t think anything other than SEO is worth investing in. SEO is just the first piece (albeit a big piece) of an online marketing strategy. Quality SEO firms will be willing to discuss other aspects of internet marketing such as conversion optimisation (great when used in conjunction with good SEO) and complementary marketing campaigns like PPC, Social Media and Email Marketing; even if they don’t offer those services themselves.
- Many SEO firms want large retainers for work already completed. Make sure if you are paying a retainer that they are still continuing to work and develop your SEO campaign (ie continued link building, content development, new keyword phrase optimisation etc).
- The SEO firm doesn’t have a proven track record or isn’t forth coming with their previous client portfolio that shows current top 1 rankings for valuable two word phrases.
- They are unwilling to explain how they SEO sites. SEO isn’t rocket science, so they should be able to explain it to you in layman’s terms. Those that aren’t willing might be hiding their black hat SEO strategies or the fact that they don’t know anything about SEO.
- The SEO company implies that you won’t have to change at least some of the content on your site, add additional content or that the content on your site isn’t important in maximising the benefits of SEO. Content is what Google sends people to you site for – it’s an important part of any SEO strategy.
- The SEO firm say it’s only important to optimise your homepage. Whilst the homepage optimisation often proves to be the most fruitful that doesn’t mean employing good SEO on the rest of your site won’t achieve a good ROI.
- The SEO company implies there are no risks to SEO. Search engines do apply penalties to sites and even deindex sites that attempt to game their ranking systems. Whilst the search engines are advocates of website owners using good SEO practices, however there are grey areas when it comes to SEO.
- The SEO firm doesn’t rank well in major search engines for their own company name. Seems crazy but there are SEO consultants out there that don’t even rank in the search engines themselves. I often suggest when looking for a local SEO that simply searching for “SEO Location” is a great place to start. So for example if you live in Sydney search for “SEO Sydney” and look at the top 10 ORGANIC results.
- People within the SEO company don’t participate in the SEO community. The search engines like Google are refining their algorithm all the time and most good SEO’s will have at least some involvement in SEO/webmaster communities to some degree.
- They want to charge per keyword. Whilst this wouldn’t instantly imply someone was a bad SEO, but the vast majority of good SEO companies just don’t operate like this.
- The SEO company says they can achieve good rankings irrespective of the competition. Competing for search engine rankings is pure competition. At the end of the day only one site can rank first for a search term, and if there are millions of sites competing for that term then ranking for it is going to be difficult to achieve.
- They contacted you. Once again the point of SEO is to get people to visit your site and contact you. There is also a huge shortage of “good” SEO services out there and the SEO’s worth hiring aren’t out there scouting for more business.
SEO In Brief
Basics of SEO in under 500 words.
Search Engine Optimisation is exactly what it sounds like; optimising a site for search engines to read, understand and index. For Google, Yahoo or Bing to rank a site, they must first be able to read the site and determine what topics it’s relevant to.
Search engine ranking algorithms are complicated in theory factoring a huge number of variables, but in practice only a few have a major influence.
Major Elements of SEO
- Keywords – The most important factor in rankings; the presence of the keywords on the page you want to rank for. Where possible they should appear in the title tags, meta tags, heading tags, content, URL, images. That said you will find more success aiming to rank for popular 2, 3 and 4 word phrases because there is less competition for them.
- Links To Your Site – Links are how search engines determine site quality. Links are like votes. If someone links to your site search engines interpret that as them endorsing your page/site. Like all democracies, the more votes (links) the better.
- Anchor Text and Relevance – Those voting for your site (linking to you) express what your strengths are with the words (anchor text) they link to you with. So a link using the words “great cooking tips” to a search engine says your site has “great cooking tips”. If that endorsement came from another popular cooking site it’s a much more respect opinion than if that endorsement came from any old site.
- Domain Name and URL – Major keywords in your domain (or page URL) tells search engine your site (or page) is about that topic.
- Lots of Quality Unique Original Content – Search engines’ purpose is to connect their customers (searchers) to good quality content. So more content means more terms search engines will find and rank you for, but remember quality counts. So write for humans first, then optimise for search engines.
- Age and Trust – The older your site is the more search engines can trust you, because it proves you’re not some fly by night SPAM site. As you build more links over time search engine trust in your increase and they’ll allow you to broaden your content and still be ranked well.
- Site Navigation – Internal links are still links according to search engines, though not as valuable as external links. Your site navigation should utilise your major keywords, link to all your major pages and be easy to navigate. A sitemap can help search engines crawl your site.
- Images – Optimise your image alt tags to improve both your page optimisation and generate extra traffic through search engine image search features.
- Tracking – This won’t help improve your rankings, but it will provide important information about the search terms people used to get to your site.
- Don’t SPAM – Search engines evolve and eventually eliminate SPAM. So don’t keyword stuff you pages and SPAM links all over the web. Just provide quality content that would be valuable for their searchers. That’s what they want; so work into their agenda.
And that’s SEO in 500 words or less. Please leave your questions and comments below:
Click Through Rates On Top Google Rankings
I’m sick of seeing SEO companies offering “guaranteed to get your listed on the first page”. Seriously, if you’re an SEO and in the business of improving Google rankings, aiming for anything less than top 5 you’re ripping your clients off. Sure the average business owner wouldn’t know that the drop off rate from 1st to 10th is close to 1400%, but professional SEO companies should be informing their clients of these facts.
CTR Based on Top Google Rankings
A study was done back in 2006 on click through rates (CTR) for top Google rankings which. The breakdown of the proportion of clicks that each ranking position got has been displayed below:
Ranking 1st: 42.13%
Ranking 2nd: 11.90%
Ranking 3rd: 8.50%
Ranking 4th: 6.06%
Ranking 5th: 4.92%
Ranking 6th: 4.05%
Ranking 7th: 3.41%
Ranking 8th: 3.01%
Ranking 9th: 2.85%
Ranking 10th: 2.99%
Second Page: 10.18%
So You Pursue Top Google Rankings; Not Top 10
Given the above evidence why would anyone aim to rank anything but first? Getting on the first page just simply isn’t enough to compete long term and this doesn’t even factor for the reality that most people are substantially more inclined to purchases from their first point of contact than additional points of contact.
So Why Such A Substantial CTR Drop Off?
At the end of the day realistically the bulk of the CTR drop off comes back to a couple of factors:
- Refine rather than scrolling - most people are more inclined to refine their search further by adding an extra keyword when the top search results don’t seem to match what they were looking for rather than scrolling through the results and additional pages.
- People are satisfiers not optimisers - most people are looking for something that satisfies their problem or query, they’re not looking for perfect information. So if the top result provides adequate information to solve their problem they are not going to continue on through the rankings visiting other sites.
- Assumption of best results are first - unfortunately the majority of searchers have come to assume that Google automatically provides them the best result for their query making lower ranked results erroneous.
- Keywords in title – top results are more likely to have the keywords search for in the title tag which Google then bolds which significantly increases CTR as a result of attracting the eye.
Now whilst as a general rule of thumb the higher you’re Google rankings the better the CTR, however this phenomenon may vary between topics search for and purpose of the search. For example if someone was searching to purchase or book something online (particularly bigger ticket items) it’s unlike that they’d limit their research to just the first result. As in with searches that precede action being taken which is of high value then a greater amount of research will be conducted. Nonetheless ranking higher is still always better.
Increasing Competition in Search Engine Result Pages Coming From Google
Over the past couple of years Google has evolved into more than a search engine. They have moved into web analytics, emails, video, maps, advertising, images, rss and even publishing themselves. With their diversification has come the leveraging of their core asset – their own search engine result pages (SERPs) to support their own secondary assets. We have seen the introduction of images, maps, local business listings, youtube videos and aggressive advertising into their own SERPs which have increased the competition for searchers clicks.
This trend isn’t likely to reverse and highlights just how important it is to diversify you internet marketing strategy into more realms than just SEO.
Why Your Conversion Optimisation Is More Important Than SEO
ShoeMoney
I get emails every day from people who rank in the search engines for their keywords but are not getting any leads from it. When I send them a list of like 20 things to do to improve their conversion they tell me “but could this affect my keyword ranking?”.Annoying…
Continuing on from the previous post – Is Your SEO Focus Destroying Your Sales Conversions? – too many online marketing campaigns are focused on SEO as their internet marketing solution rather than just a small part of the equation.
Diminishing Returns of SEO Optimisation
Whilst the click through rate difference between 1st and 10th can be as much as 1500% there comes a point where SEO won’t yield the return on investment that optimising a site design for conversions or integrating optimised landing pages into PPC campaign will. Often refining the average site design to convert better can produce just as significant a ROI, if not even more so, than SERP ranking improvements in addition to giving you a longer term strategic advantage over unoptimised competitors in paid traffic mediums.
Over Reliance On Google
Also far too often people forget that Google is a law unto itself, it’s not obligated to rank your site for anything, and if all your eggs are in the SEO basket be prepared for some tears and a business model break down. If your online success is over 70% dependant on Google that’s a single point of failure if I have ever seen one. Now I’m not saying Google and SEO shouldn’t make up a very important chunk of your online marketing campaign, but it’s not the be all end all that many SEO companies sell. Rather it should be seen as the very healthy bonus to an online marketing campaign.
Poor Conversion Optimisation Helps Your Competitors
Aside from over reliance on SEO and Google, the reality is with your competition just a click away users don’t waste time trying to work your site out or spend too long trying to find the products and services they are looking for. They literally conclude in a couple of short seconds whether you have what they want. Failing this test they will be browsing your competitor’s site seconds later.
So not only are you missing conversion opportunities you’re giving your competitors a bite at the cherry, not to mention that in our fast paced world empirically it’s been shown that customers first point of contact is many times more likely to make the sale than following points of contact. So making it simple to get find the information they need then proceed down a sales funnel and/or get in contact with you is vitally important.
You need to remember that in the world of business, sales are more important than potential prospects. So keep your website focused on best serving your customer, rather than focusing on primarily serving Google.
Plan For The Future Of SEO
The web is the most competitive place for businesses to compete and having a site unoptimised for conversion will hurt you more in the long run than having a site that is unoptimised for search engines. With Google’s algorithm constantly evolving many top search engine marketing experts are speculating that websites that engage their users as well as continue to build an aging link profile are gaining a first mover advantage if/when Google decides to build user based data into their their ranking algorithm.
Internet Marketing Darwinism – Survival Of The Fittest
With SEO many feel search engine traffic is free therefore conversation optimisation of it isn’t essential, but the reality is every visitors that leaves without buying, subscribing or clicking an ad is a missed opportunity that you may not get again, or worse is gone to the competition. If your competitors utilise their opportunities better than you, it doesn’t matter if you out rank them today because Darwinism is alive on the web and the fit, strong and flexible organisations and individuals using best practices will eat into your market share and increase user retentions which will indirectly lead to eating into your rankings well over the longer run.
Sell Because People Want To Buy
Many site owners fear being overly focused on conversion optimisation or being “too aggressive” in selling themselves, but at the end of the day the strong will rise to the top and weak will be filtered out of the web like any other competitive system.
Plus when was the last time you visited a random site and went “man I’d love to be friends with the owner of this site?” That’s right, never. Your visitors don’t want to be your friends, they want you to help solve their problems.
And when was the last time you said “wow this site provides great value, but I hate the fact that the owner had the nerve to place ads on his site.” Once again, rarely.
So remember that people have come to your site to solve a problem, make that as easy as possible for them, and if you can cost effectively solve that for them, you’ve created a win win situation which is the principle under which business is done. Don’t be afraid of selling to people who want to do business with you and don’t get caught up on SEO – it’s not the primary part of your business.
Is Your SEO Focus Destroying Your Sales Conversions?
ShoeMoney
I get emails every day from people who rank in the search engines for their keywords but are not getting any leads from it. When I send them a list of like 20 things to do to improve their conversion they tell me “but could this affect my keyword ranking?”.Annoying…
ShoeMoney’s above comment reminded me a little of my own online story which engaged me to review the topic which I have split over two posts, this being the first, the second being Why Your Conversion Optimisation Is More Important Than Your SEO.
Once upon a time I too was guilty of being too focused on the traffic side of the revenue equation and the penny didn’t really drop for me until 2006 when I found the real secret lay in striking a balance between SEO and increasing ePV (earnings per visitor).
The “It’s So Simple It’s Stupid” Online Revenue Model
Producing online revenues in it’s simplest form is just a function of “visitors x ePV”. It seems so simple, yet the vast majority of people running websites online neglect one or the other.
Most businesses websites have a good product focus that’s complemented by good copy and prominent calls to action as a result of their experience with traditional marketing formats like print media, but still lack the know how to drive visitors to their site nor are they aware that they should be employing an internet marketing agency to help drive visitors to their site. Most have just bought into the “build it and they will come model” purported by their web designers who claim to offer well SEOed site design with Google doing the rest.
On the other side of the coin you have many passionate bloggers and hobby site owners who find their sites have outgrow their own ability to maintain on a part time basis as popularity follows their passion to produce quality content, products or services. In most cases if these hobby sites and blogs were better monetised it would justify a greater commitment from the webmaster, ultimately producing a better user experience for the visitors and everyone would win.
Finding the Balance Between SEO and Conversion Optimisation
When it comes to finding the balance between SEO and conversion optimisation eyeballs are more important than earnings in the beginning. However with the diminishing marginal returns of SEO coupled with the rising opportunity cost of neglecting on page conversion optimisation there comes a tipping point where a greater ROI can be achieved through focusing on extracting greater value from each visitors.
This turning point is different for different sites and different business models. For your typical blogger blogging about their passion monetizing their site primarily with Google AdSense the turning point comes around the 500 visitor/day mark when a serious analysis of revenue optimisation should be undertaken.
For a local business website the turning point occurs at much lower levels of traffic due to the higher margins of selling a tangible product or service. For many business websites a serious conversion optimisation review should be done when receiving in excess of 50 visitors/days. Additional consideration should also be given to businesses competing in auction based advertising markets, like Google AdWords, as they can better compete over the long run if their website produce higher rates of conversion than their competitors justifying a higher profitable max bid.
Evolution Of The New Internet Marketing Firm
There seems to be a large gap in the market within Australia (my local market) for firms that produce quality, usable web designs, that are well optimised for search engines yet still have a focus on conversion. Moving forward it is difficult to not see major SEO, PPC, web design, copy writing firm converging into one stop shops of online business presence given their mutualism.
It would seem that at this stage most small businesses continue to primarily gauge the success of their business website almost holistically on traffic and as such almost exclusively pursue methods of increasing search rankings. This is perfectly highlighted by the fact that there are over a 1,200,000 results when searching for “search engine optimisation” in Australia, but less than 15,000 results for either “conversion optimisation” or “landing page optimisation”. In the not too distant future the smart small business operators will not be solely looking for SEO services alone rather a more comprehensive internet marketing service.
The moral of the story is to know what you’re in the game of optimisation for; sales not traffic – Why Your Conversion Optimisation Is More Important Than Your SEO.