You’re wasting your money on SEO and what you can do about it, Part 1

So many of our clients are hostile toward Search Engine Optimization because they “paid client for SEO, and nothing happened. They didn’t do anything.”

We won’t pretend to know the intent of the previous search engine optimization firms, but we will say that if you don’t know what search engine optimization and what a search engine optimization company is going to do, you will end up wasting your money.

After we explained it to one client, the put it like this.

“It’s like going to a mechanic and asking them to fix your car,” he said.

Exactly.

Your website isn’t converting. It’s not getting any traffic. So you know something’s wrong with it. Just like you know that when your car makes that funny noise something is wrong with it.

So you look for someone to help you.

When you go to a mechanic, you bring your car in and say “I need you to look at my car. Something’s wrong with it.”

And, sure enough, the shop will look over your car and produce a list of things that is wrong with it and then offer to fix it.

Your much better off if you have an inkling of what is happening with your car and what parts are involved. You can then isolate the problem, present it to the mechanic and know that they are going to address the problem you brought to them.

Same thing with search engine optimization. If you bring your site to an SEO and tell them that it’s not getting traffic or it’s not converting, there is a list of problems they can come up with and get straight to work.

But if you don’t know what they’re doing, you’re paying for a mystery.

So let’s break down search engine optimization, so you know what goes into optimizing your web presence.

Search Engine Marketing

First, we need to take a step back. What most people think of as search engine optimization is really a bigger topic called Search Engine Marketing.

Search Engine Marketing encompasses everything related to search engines (Google, Bing, Yelp, etc) and your Marketing efforts.

From there, we can break Search Engine Marketing unto smaller topics.

Paid Search Placement

Paid search placement is when you purchase space in search listings. You’ve probably seen paid search listings in Google.

They are the “search results” that appear above and to the right of the main or “organic” search results. In the graphic below, the paid search results are in red and the organic search results are in green.

We tend to think of paid search placement as advertising. What you are essentially doing is paying Google to include your advertisements in its search results.

How many times it appears, where it appears, when it appears and to whom it appears depends on how much you are willing to pay, who you are targeting and what Keywords your buying.

And there are two ways you can pay: Per click or per impression.

Just as the phrases indicated, for per impression ads, you pay each time your ad appears in search results. And for per click ads, you pay each time someone clicks your ad in search results.

All things equal, per impression ads cost less per action than per click ads.

Let’s go back to the point about “buying Keywords” as that is most often understood.

Let’s use a basic example and say you are willing to pay $1 (per click) to have your advertisement show up in Google every time searched for the keyword “I love apples.”

If, no one else is willing to pay more than $1 for that keyword, you get the top spot in search placement (above the main search results).

Let’s say four other companies say they’re willing to be more than $1 to appear for that keyword. In that case, you would appear fifth (fourth on the right-hand side).

And if 10 companies will pay more than $1, you won’t appear at all.

Generally, Paid Search Placement is the last area we focus on for a company’s Search Engine Marketing strategy.

It’s useful for quick wins as you see immediate gratification, but it is expensive to maintain, and organic search results have a much higher click-through rate.

For example, someone searching Google for “I love apples” is 10-times more likely to click on a non-paid search result than a paid search result.

When you hire a company for help with Paid Placement, you are hiring them to:

• Write compelling Calls to Action or CTAs: In paid search, you have control over what your ads say, so you need them to have strong messages that entice a searcher to click on them.
• Pick the right Keywords: You don’t want to spend money on Keywords that won’t drive conversions. If you buy placement for the keyword “i love apples,” and you get traffic, but no one buys your product, either your site is poorly designed or people who are searching for “i love apples” don’t want to buy what you’re selling. Also, your SEO needs to identify Keywords that your competition hasn’t gone after. This will allow you to avoid getting into a bidding war for expensive Keywords. Basically, this means that if it costs you $5 per click to get listed for “I love apples” and two people buy your $5 product every day after clicking the ad, you have a 50 percent profit margin ((5×2 – 5)/10 = .5). But if you can find a keyword that costs you $1 per click but only sells one $5 product per day, you are generating an 80 percent profit margin ((5×1 – 1)/5)
• Manage your budget: An SEO should make sure you’re not paying any more than you need to for Keywords and pick the right demographic to expose your keyword to. Search Engines like Google will let you set daily budgets and limit your ads to specific times of days and locales.

So that covers paid placement.

In part two, we’ll take a look at link building, so be sure to check that out.