SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: TALES

FROM A PRACTITIONER

Presented to:

GA Tech College of

Management

September 11, 2012

ABOUT ME & PPI

Degrees in Business/Marketing and Communications Management Marketing = 25 years Search engine marketing = 14 years President of SEMPO Atlanta – event at Google’s office this Thursday evening: http://bit.ly/NWW5wI Full-service, award-winning search engine marketing agency based in Atlanta since 2001 Provide search engine optimization (SEO) & pay-per-click (PPC) services to clients nationwide

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT SEM?

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT SEM?

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

(SEO)

Organic, editorial,

natural, algorithmic

results (SEO - Search Engine Optimization)

Paid listings, sponsored links,

pay-per-click (PPC) ads, cost per click (CPC)

SEO GOALS

ECOMMERCE VS. LEAD GENERATION

Goal is to make an immediate sale

Usually less expensive, more simple products

Short sales cycle, impulse buys

Goal is to capture a prospect’s data for lead nurturing

Usually more expensive or complicated products & services

Longer sales cycle, decision by committee

Often B2C Often B2B

SEO COSTS

HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK(THE ORGANIC – SEO – SIDE)

Step 1: Find, crawl & index web content

Step 2: Receive query, rank & display content

THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP

Keyword Research!

SEARCH TERM RESEARCH: CRITICAL

Use the verbiage your target audience uses – not what your industry or internal experts use

“search marketing” or “web optimization”? “healthcare” or “health care”?

“financial solutions” or “financial software”?

KEYWORD RESEARCH

Search volume Competitiveness Stage in buying cycle

serversused

serversused

as/400 servers

used ibm as/400 servers

Search volume

Competitiveness

Probability of buying

Likelihood of high rankings

AVOID EDITORIAL RESULTS WITH SEARCH TERM SELECTION

80% editorial

AVOID EDITORIAL RESULTS WITH SEARCH TERM SELECTION

80% commercial

ON-PAGE FACTORS

Source: Search Engine Land

BUT WAIT… Search engines don’t just look at the web page itself when determining how to rank it They also look at the quantity and quality of links pointing to that web page Links are an implied endorsement

Source: SEO Solution Blog

LINK-BUILDING: CRITICAL & MUST BE DONE RIGHT

YES: high quantity of quality links, relevant sites, hand-selected sites, diversified link types, content/campaign creation (“link bait”), social media, leveraging other marketing tactics

NO: link farms, irrelevant sites, automated submissions, too many links from the same type of site, reciprocal links, paid links, content farms

THE CRIMES OF SEOSource: eZanga.com

Source: Reload Media

OFF-PAGE FACTORSSource: Search Engine Land

ALL SEO FACTORSSource: Search Engine Land

SOCIAL MEDIA

SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE LEVERAGED FOR SEO PURPOSES

Content

GOAL: TAKE UP AS MUCH ROOM IN THE SERPS AS POSSIBLE

Website

Twitter profile

Facebook profile

LinkedIn profile

BusinessWeek profile

(not us)

Optimized press release

Video (not us)

Website

Website

MONITOR YOUR COMPANY & BRAND NAME(S)

SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE LEVERAGED FOR SEO PURPOSES

Votes

SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE LEVERAGED FOR SEO PURPOSES

Links

MEASURING RESULTS(How do we know this is working?)

HOW DO YOU MEASURE SEO?

MEASURING RESULTS

RankingsVisitors /

Site Traffic

Conversions / Revenue /

ROI

WHY DO RANKINGS MATTER?

Source: eZanga.com

PERSONALIZED SEARCH MEANS RESULTS VARY FOR EVERYONE

USABILITY: MORE IMPORTANT THAN SEO EVEN? (YES!)

USABILITY: MORE IMPORTANT THAN SEO EVEN? (YES!)

USABILITY: MORE IMPORTANT THAN SEO EVEN? (YES!)

Site Visitors•100,000

Good Site•1% conversion rate

Conversions•1,000

Site Visitors after SEO•200,000

Good Site•1% conversion rate

Conversions•2,000 Site Visitors

•100,000

Great Site•2% conversion rate

Conversions•2,000

Site Visitors after SEO•200,000

Great Site•2% conversion rate

Conversions•4,000

Starting point

SEO only

Usability only

SEO + Usability

HOW PHONE CALL TRACKING WORKS

Type in URL directly & see this:

Click on a Google organic listing & see this:

Click on a Google paid listing & see this:

CALL TRACKING ENSURES YOU’RE MEASURING ALL RESULTS

66%

33%

CALL TRACKING ENSURES YOU’RE MEASURING ALL RESULTS

Mini Case Study:-71% of leads came in by phone-Increased PPC bids-Doubled the number of PPC leads generated

CASE STUDIES

INCREASE IN RANKINGS

INCREASE IN ORGANIC SITE TRAFFIC

INCREASE IN ORGANIC CONVERSIONS

PAID SEARCH HAS ADDITIONAL METRICS

LANDING PAGES CAN MAKE OR BREAK

3.4

% co

nversio

n ra

te - B

EFO

RE

4.8

% co

nversio

n ra

te – A

FTER

(>4

0%

in

crease

SEO & PAID SEARCH TOGETHER ARE EVEN MORE POWERFUL

WANT MORE?

Subscribe to our newsletter: www.prominentplacement.com

Subscribe to our blog (email or RSS): www.searchadvisory.net

“Like” us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ProminentPlacement

Follow us on Twitter: @ProminentPlcmnt or @StacyWms

Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/prominent-placement-inc.

View other presentation on Slideshare: www.slideshare.net/stacywms We are always looking for good interns – email me your

resume at StacyWilliams@ProminentPlacement.com if you are interested!