An interesting post over at SEOMoz highlights the spending disconnect that exists in the way that many companies allocate their online marketing spend.
Not surprisingly, search advertising should continue to be the largest category, growing from $9.1 billion in 2007 to $20.9 billion in 2013.
- Source: C|Net News, June 30, 2008
While the current spend on natural SEO?
SEO: $1.3 billion (11%)
- Source: SEMPO data via Massimo Burgio, SMX Madrid 2008
So, out of a total of around $10.4 billion spent on search, only $1.3 billion, or 12.5% is spent on natural search placement. Therefore you would expect the potential traffic from natural search to be the smaller piece of the pie, right?
Wrong.
Looking at the Google heat map we can see that it’s the natural results that catch the attention of users viewing the page.
This superior visibility is matched by the click through rate data,
The natural results in Google drive more than 70% of search traffic, though only account for 12.5% of online spend.
Why is this? Take your pick from any one or more of the following,
- PPC is an easier concept for people to understand, there is a general lack of education and understanding of the SEO process.
- PPC is quicker (almost instant) to get results and you only pay for traffic that you actually receive. There is a higher perception of accountability and control.
- Traditional marketers pay far less attention to SEO, column inches in the business press given over to SEO are far less than PPC. Again this may well be due to a lack of SEO understanding amongst journalists.
- There is a lack of trust in a segmented and unregulated SEO marketplace. A basic lack of understanding handicaps buyers and can lead to acceptance of poor advice and wrong buying decisions.
Although Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a skill that takes time and effort to master, there is no reason why a small business can’t give themselves an edge over their competitors by putting in place some of the framework that a professional SEO consultant would expect to cover.
In this article I’m going to look at why you, a small business owner needs to consider SEO for their website and some steps that you, or your web developer can put into place that will help ensure your site is performing as well as possible in the search engines.
Why do small business need SEO?
If you have a website then you should at some point have considered how people are finding you online. Relying on ‘push’ marketing factors such as brochures, business cards and flyers is all very well, but you already have had some contact with these targets - it’s not really using your website to its full potential to draw in a previously untapped market.
Over 70% of online sales start with a user conducting a search. If you sell or gather leads online, that’s a huge slice of your potential market that you’re missing out on. Good search engine rankings for relevant and often used search terms will drive qualified leads to your site at a fraction of the price of other marketing methods.
When To Keep Things In-House
Given the skills and the time it’s perfectly possible to conduct a reasonable SEO campaign in-house. If you or your web developer are happy to edit your website, and you and your staff have some time to devote to the campaign, then there’s no reason why you can’t make a success out of things without getting some experts in.
When To Outsource
If your website is (or has the potential to be) one of your major revenue streams, and a budget is available, then you should consider getting some experts in to run the campaign for you. Take care when hiring, make sure you ask the correct questions and ask for references. Our free SEO Buyers Guide should help you out here.
Essentially when hiring an SEO consultant, you’re not just paying for their time and knowledge, but also their experience and industry contacts - it is this that will give you a real edge over your competitors.
Some SEO Tips For Small Business’
Know Your Market
Firstly, before you go any further, you need to ensure you’re targeting the correct people. Is your market geographically based in one country? If so try to ensure that you’re using the correct top level domain for that country, for example a .co.uk domain in the UK, or a .fr in France. Failing that, if you have a more generic .com or .net domain then make sure that your website is hosted in the correct country. This will help to ensure that the traffic that search engines send will be from the market that you’re targeting.
Understand Your Keywords
One of the most important stages for any SEO is understanding which keywords are being used by people to find your products. Start off by brainstorming a list of keywords that you think people may use to find your products and services. Then use a keyword research tool to expand and develop your list beyond those that you have already thought of.
Page Titles/Descriptions
Ensure that each page on your site has a unique page title and meta description. If you’re comfortable editing web pages yourself then it’s not terribly complicated. Otherwise you may want to ask your web developer to do it. The titles and description tags should always be unique and reflect the content of each individual page. Here it’s best use your keyword list in order to understand which terms are most frequently searched for.
Other areas of the page to use your keywords are places like headings, image ‘alt’ text, bold text and the page content. First and formost ensure the pages read well to visitors, avoid stuffing as many keywords onto the page as you can - that doesn’t work anymore!
Use Analytics
You’ll be able to make far better decisions regarding the marketing of your site if you have a solid understanding of how people are finding your site, which keywords and sites are driving visitors, and which visitors convert into sales. Signup for a free service like Google Analytics which will give you all of this information and more.
Consider Your Content
Great content can make it far easier to get a website ranking well. Look at the kind of information that your competitors are offering and improve on it. Try to ensure your site is a resource for everything that someone in your industry will need. Resource sites tend to rank a lot better as people are compelled to link to the information contained on them. Consider adding a blog your website that you can publish and archive regular posts on.
Think Links
Up until now everything that you have done has helped a search engine to understand what your pages are about. The page optimisation and content creation all help a search engine to decide which subjects your pages cover.
However it’s the links that point to your pages that let search engines know how important your pages are, and therefore how highly they should rank on the results pages.
Look for opportunities to get other webmasters to link to you. You may have suppliers or clients that you can ask. You may have industry bodies that link to members. You can consider writing articles on other industry websites or adding your site to relevant directories. The list of linking opportunities is endless.
Local SEO
Add your business to the local search services that the main search engines now offer. This will help return your business when people perform geographic queries such as “London accountant” Go to Google, Yahoo or Live to add your business.
Above all SEO takes time and patience. It’s not something that happens overnight. Over time you will find your efforts are rewarded with high quality relevant website visitors that convert into sales.
Datadial have launched a revised second edition of their SEO buyers guide. The guide is designed to take the confusion and guesswork out of buying SEO services. One of the main problems facing the SEO industry is that buyers often aren’t clear on exactly what they are buying and why.
The problem arises when less scrupulous companies aim to take advantage of this lack of knowledge, promises are made that can’t be fulfilled, or the required work simply isn’t carried out.In the end it is not just the client that loses out, but also the industry as a whole as confidence is a difficult thing to win back.
Our buyers guide is aimed at taking the guesswork out of choosing your SEO vendor. It details the more common scams, details the work that should be being carried out in any good SEO campaign, and offers a list of key questions that you should be asking your potential SEO.
The key for any buyer is to educate yourself as much as possible about the service that you’re buying, the more you know, the more informed your decision will be.
Download our buyers guide for free
Choosing a search engine optimisation service provider isn’t an easy task. It’s difficult to evaluate what is essentially an intangible service that can take time to see any evidence of improvement. This business isn’t made any easier by the marketplace being full of people that are quite happy to take your money and run.
The internet is full of tales of woe from clients that used companies that either promised results that they couldn’t deliver, or simply used scams to take their clients money and run. The process can be made easier by knowing what the most common scams are, knowing which questions to ask, what answers you should receive and the warning signs that should make you run a mile.Let’s first start with the scams - these usually involve charging over the odds for services that either won’t help you get ranked in the search engines, or may even damage any existing rankings that you have.
- The guaranteed #1 listing in Google using PPC. A company approaches you promising to get you ranked at #1 in Google for whatever keywords you want. Sounds great right? The problem being is that these people then use a small proportion of the money that you’ve paid them to get you to the #1 position in the sponsored listings rather than the natural results. Of course once they stop paying for your listing then your website is back where it began and the ‘SEO’ company is walking away with a tidy profit.
- Search Engine Submission Services. You’ll probably see a lot of people offering to submit your site to 25,000 search engines. While this isn’t strictly a scam, it’s not really a service that you need. You can submit to search engines, though usually they’ll find you though links to your site. You certainly don’t need to submit to 25,000, there are really only three main search engines, and less than 10 worth worrying about. Paying for a submission service is a waste of money - and besides, if you must do it then you can do it for free here, or create a Google sitemap to submit. This format is now recognised and used by all of the major search engines.
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The guaranteed listing, but they won’t let you choose your own keywords. Many companies that guarantee top 10 or #1 rankings do so while not letting you choose which keywords you’d like to be ranked on. Many companies that ‘guarantee’ rankings apply this to keywords that nobody ever searches for, so while you may want to be found for search phrases such as ‘Estate Agents’ or ‘London Estate Agents’ you actually find that you’re #1 for ‘London Property Estate Agents And Homes’. Of course very few people, if any search for this, so the ranking is worthless. The lesson here is to ensure that you have full control over which search phrases the SEO is targeting.
- Creating offsite pages or ‘doorway pages’ not on your own site. Many companies offer to create pages that aren’t on your own site to capture and direct traffic to your site. In some instances this can be against search engines terms of service and can result in penalties or bans. Of course when you stop using the company you find out that you don’t retain ownership of these pages and in the worst case scenario you find that they’re sold your your competitor.
Okay, so now you know the scams that you should be looking out for, how do you sort out the companies that know the basics from those that will actually do a good job?Google themselves actually offer some good advice on choosing a search engine optimisation company to work with.
- Be wary of companies that contact you out of the blue or through spam emails.
- No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google - be wary of those that do.
- Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t explain their methods.
- You should never have to link to an SEO’s own website.
So what questions should you ask a potential SEO when you’re deciding who to work with?
- The first thing that I’d ask is for some examples of current work; ask for the sites URL and the keywords that the site is ranking for. By doing this you should narrow the field down to the people who are actually able to get sites ranking well. Check that the keywords that they have the client ranking for are competitive and people would actually search for them.
- It also doesn’t do any harm to ask for a telephone number of some existing clients to talk to. Not only does this ensure that the rankings that they’re providing are genuinely sites that they’re working on, but you’ll also get some idea of what the company is like to work with from another client’s point of view.
- Check that the optimisation process involves three clearly defined stages. 1) Keyword research, 2) On Page Optimisation 3) Off Page Optimisation (LinkBuilding)
- Keyword research - check that you as the client as the final say in which keywords should be targeted.
- On-Page optimisation - check that the SEO will change the pages titles, meta-tags and where appropriate alt and titles tags. Make sure that they confirm that they are familiar in working in you site’s technology - HTML/ASP/PHP
- Off-Page optimisation - Ensure that your strategy includes a link building campaign. Links are vital in the ranking process, a strategy that doesn’t involve some form of linkbuilding campaign will most likely fail.
- Ensure that you are the copyright holder of any work that is completed.
- Ask the company to confirm that they stick to search engine guidelines and avoid any unethical practices that may get your website banned or penalised.
- Find out what kind of timescale they expect to start seeing results. Changes can take between 6 and 12 months. Answers of days or weeks should set alarm bells ringing.
- Check to see how they will update you of any progress. I’d suggest that you should at least receive a monthly rankings and traffic report from them.
- Ask what you can do to help your SEO along. It’ll probably be the case where offline promotional activities can be synergised with your online efforts in many cases.
Making sure that you ask the questions above and are aware of the common scams should help to minimise the risk when hiring an SEO. Above all make sure that you’re comfortable with the person that you’ve hired and where possible have some face to face meetings to discuss your strategy.
How much should I pay?There are several different pricing models that SEO’s use, including hourly consulting, pricing per project, or on a monthly ongoing basis.Pricing between companies can vary wildly, with the general rule of thumb being that you get what you pay for. If you’re quoted £50 per month for an SEO service you have to ask yourself how much that company values it’s time, and how much your you expect to get done on your site for the price of a half decent pair of trousers?
You probably don’t need me to tell you that ads like the one above end up with disappointed customers rather than #1 results. If it was that cheap and easy wouldn’t everyone be ranking in the top 10?Generally pricing is dependant on factors such as the competitive nature of the keywords and the industry, the age and existing rankings of the website, the size and structure of the website along with any potential problems that that the site structure causes.This table shows the general industry prices for different levels of SEO services at the moment,
Usually, as with anything, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.
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