Search Engine Optimization Increases Business » Any Questions?

Sometimes I'm baffled by the lack of understanding most business owners have in the value of online visiblity. Even some of the clients I have worked with which have seen and realized fantastic results still fail to recognize the benefits. In this desperate economy isn't an increase in revenue a good thing?

I recently went through the effort of creating a detailed analytics presentation on the performance of one of my clients sites since signing with Florida Search Engine Optimization. Self promotion aside - their site is performing and producing phenomenally well, which in turn evaluates to a significant increase in revenue. However, shortly after giving the successful presentation and discussing moving forward with increasing their search marketing efforts - their focus and committment waned and they haven't moved forward since.

Not trying to brag here ... but I feel it's important to mention that I hardly ever market for new clients - Almost all of the business that I get is through my own optimization efforts. When I first started out I did have to grab the 50 pound phone to get things kicked off, but I haven't had to do "hard marketing" in a long time ...

I feel partially responsible in not being able to effectively communicate the value of SEO to the "C Suite" ... I guess I just consider an increase in conversions and revenue a no brainer.

That's it.

Goal Conversions are The Bottom Line

Recently there seems to be a big shift in focus in the SEO industry regarding the importance of conversions over search engine rankings. This concept really sounds like a no-brainer to me ... probably because I was trained in SEO by a company that earned income solely from their lead generation ... If our rankings didn't turn into conversions for our clients ... We didn't complete our goals ... We lost our clients. The bottom line for my SEO strategy has always been focused toward online conversions of search traffic.

So Why Are Conversions Important » Now?

Last year Google ramped up their personalized search initiative which effectively tailors search results from behavior based user data ... According to Google's Matt Cutts, there needs to be a shift in the way SEO's currently operate. WebProNews's Mike McDonald recently asked Matt "Is Ranking Dead?" In response to Mike Matt stated,

"I'm not sure I would say ranking is dead but it's not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It's great if you're ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn't help you very much."

"The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don't worry about 'can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase ' ... "

The video below is from the interview with Matt Cutts and Mike McDonald at PubCon LasVegas ...

Furthermore, Google's working diligently on their Universal Search model and SEO's need to be able to adapt to Google's ever changing environment by learning to develop and initiate a broader range of tools to complete the conversion equation by bringing in targeted search traffic. For the SEO industry this means you need to focus more than ever before on building campaigns that are targeted towards conversions and not so much on rankings. However, it is important to note that rankings are only a metric, and have always been only part of the equation that is required to increase conversions. Obtaining search engine rankings without actually benefiting from that positioning is not very useful.

SEO is Changing » Is Your SEO Strategy Changing Too?

Recently there was a guest post by Eduard Blacquiare on Joost de Valk's site entitled, "Measuring SEO » Why Rankings Are Worthless". In his post he mentions several key points supporting the transition of rankings-based success to a conversion focused model. Some of the key factors Eduard mentioned are:

• Ranking Checkers » Google has recently been blocking some automated ranking testing equipment.
• Personal Search » Google is putting a great emphasis on their efforts to tailor their search results.

Furthermore, Eduard continues in his post with his view on things we can do to measure our success.

• Measure the Growth Rate of Search Engine Traffic ...
• Measure the Growth Rate of Search Engine Traffic per Keyword ...
• Measure the Growth of Conversions from Search Engine Traffic ...
• Measure the Growth of Conversions from Search Engine Traffic per Keyword ...

Personalized Search » What About Traffic from Nationally Focused Search Terms?

This is a topic I would like to discuss with Matt myself... In Matt's discussion with Mike McDonald, he mentions searching for the word "bank" will illicit a different result in the United States than it would in Great Britain. This is due in part because part of the metrics to determine personalized search results are based on the user's I.P., their search trends and their search behavior. From what we can infer from what Matt stated, personalized search result are relevant to the term as well as user data. Though personal search is playing a big roll in the dynamic, ever-changing environment at Google, I don't believe that competition for keyword ranking is going to be dismissed for nationally focused keywords.

Analytics are Paramount in the Quest to Obtain Conversions

Again, I received a fairly intense introduction to the SEO industry, so I have a solid understanding of the importance of conversion statistics. One of the first tools that I used was ClickTracks, which I still to this day consider a powerful tool in any SEO's arsenal. However, I recently also picked up a copy of the absolutely fantastic book, "Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics" by Brian Clifton which I highly recommend for anyone interested in measuring the success of their SEO marketing campaigns.

A Little Gem at the End

So, now that you've gotten this far, I can only assert that you are interested in the success of your SEO campaigns. Again there was another excellent post on Joost de Valk's blog, this one by Andre Scholten, on how you can track your organic Google rankings with Google Analytics ... Here's the video on Vimeo ...

Adding a ranking filter in Google Analytics from Joost de Valk on Vimeo.

I've implemented this on several of the campaigns that I am currently running and I can verify that it definitely works. You can now have your organic keyword rankings appear in your Analytics reports by setting up some custom filters in your Google Analytics account. This means you can determine the quality of the conversions you are getting from both paid, and non-paid keywords and their respective positioning in the search engine results pages ... How's that for conversion statistics?

That's It.

Hyves Google Web Site Penalty Checker » As I was perusing through the updates on Seo Master List, I saw an interesting post from Search Engine Watch regarding checking whether your web site is penalized or banished from Google by simply adding "hyves." Before your domain name ... IE (hyves.google.com) Though it may seem strange ... it apparently works. All you have to do is add the name hyves before your domain name and you will get the results ...

According to Marcus Tandler, AKA Media Adonis, the resulting PageRank from the addition of the sub-domain will return the result in the form of the following grades on the Google Tool Bar PageRank indicator:

• PR 0 » The site is banned in Google
• PR 4 » The site has received a Google Penalty
• PR 7 » The site is okay.

You might want to take a look at your site's condition soon though ... once this gets out to the mainstream it's only a matter of time before the big G gets it offline ...

In recent news, there were reports that the incumbent search engine Google, reached record highs (again) for the Month of March 08', with an incredible 59.8% of the market share. The data was collected from Hitwise and Compete for the US search stats, and clearly shows that Google is stronger than ever. Not like anyone doubted that, but it's official.

The tale of the tape as far as comscore has it, is as follows:

• Google » 59.8%
• Yahoo » 21.3%
• Microsoft  » 9.4%
• AOL » 4.8%
• Ask » 4.7%

Regarding market share versus amount of searches per month ...

• Google » 6.4 billion
• Yahoo » 2.3 billion
• Microsoft » 1 billion
• AOL » 521 million
• Ask » 503 million

Based on these stats, it's pretty clear to see that Google, is still the search engine that drives the most traffic.