This blog post focuses on the top 5 reasons why hiring a professional SEO company is a much better idea than doing your own SEO. Let’s take a look:

1. Time is money: SEO takes time. It takes time to learn, time to understand and most importantly – time to implement. You need to optimize your content, spend hours and hours building links and make any structural changes to your website that aren’t currently optimal. Sure, you could maybe learn to do your own SEO optimization, but you’re a business owner, your job is to concentrate on your clients, your business and how to improve it in as many ways as possible. Every hour you spend doing your own SEO is a billable hour stolen from your customers.

2. SEO is a lifestyle: An SEO marketing company employs SEO professionals who live and breathe SEO 24/7! They browse forums to research the latest trends and have the luxury of using new strategies on multiple clients which quickly helps them get an idea of what works best. The key to effective SEO is to keep up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in the industry. As a business owner you need to focus on your business and simply cannot keep up-to-date with all the most recent SEO trends (unless you trade the “luxury” of sleep in for time spent on SEO).

3. Professional copywriting: You may be an entrepreneurial genius, but this seldom means that you’re also lucky enough to be blessed with amazing creativity and expert writing abilities! Any decent SEO services company will have a team of professional copywriters who’d go so far as to eat alphabet cereal for breakfast if it would make them better writers. The grammar, punctuation and tone of the content on your website promises to be more professional and effective in converting visitors to buyers. And of course going back to point one above – copywriting takes time, time that you as a business owner simply don’t have.

4. Better conversion: A good SEO company will not only help improve traffic to your website, they will also know what to do with this traffic once it reaches your website. SEO professionals live for the internet and more specifically, e-commerce. They know all about web conventions, how people react to different web pages and how to ensure that a good percentage of your casual visitors will become customers. They can assist with changes to the structure of your website, the structure of your key landing pages as well as the look and feel of your website to ensure optimal conversion.

5. It’s a good investment: As you know, an investment is something that you pump money into in the hope that you get your money back and some. Hiring SEO professionals is also an investment, a safe one at that – if you hire the correct SEO Company. UK “investors” can also be assured that SEO optimization is a measurable investment which ensures that you will never be left wondering if you’re making returns on the money that you put in. SEO companies provide you with extensive tracking tools which give you a clear indication of how your investment is progressing.

It’s all about time and professionalism versus money. Make sure you choose an ethical SEO company with a proven track record and impressive ROI statistics and you won’t regret it. SEO will prove to be the primary reason for more traffic reaching your website, so why risk something this important by doing it yourself. Leave it to the professionals I say.

Jennifer Laycock from Search Engine Marketing has given an inspired suggestion on how to find out why your high traffic is not delivering the desired conversions with her blog, Showing all the right people all the wrong things. It’s as simple as, ‘ask Mom’. The point of this exercise is that the mom in question knows as little as possible about SEO and is approaching the website entirely from a usability point of view. You’ll realise what needs to be changed by taking note of when she starts getting frustrated or lost on the site.

In the SEO industry, we can easily get lost in analytics and technicalities, and while these are at the heart of internet marketing, sometimes it’s time to use Occam’s razor. And no I’m not on the topic of hair removal: Occam’s razor was thought up by a logician way back in the day (I’m talking the 14th century) and, according to Wikipedia, the principle stated “the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible”. So, all you need to do is sit back and let the user (who has come without a set of preconceived SEO ideas) do the work. The solutions will soon become clear with the statements that he or she makes.

For example:

Statement: “I don’t know how to buy this product.”

Solution: Get some catchy (but non-invasive buttons) to lead the user easily through the online purchasing process.

Statement: “I don’t understand what they’re trying to do/ sell/ say.”

Solution: You need to be clearer with your content. Give the user a short, snappy of overview of what you’re about and keep them interested and keen to explore your site further. A suggestion on a WebProWorld forum was to “tell me in a few short sentences that this is the site for me”.

Only then are you ready to get down to the nitty gritty details and start delving into your analytics accounts. If your site is ranking well for the keyword ‘home improvement service’ but the conversion you want is that people buy flooring materials, then you need to change your campaign so that keywords such as ‘tiles’ and ‘buy tiles’ start ranking.

PPC seems to be the Linus Blanket for marketing managers. I’m not 100% sure why, apart from it being a certain thing. I suppose if you choose an SEO agency that doesn’t perform it seems like the safe bet. We have internal battles for the cost per visit from SEO and PPC and I’m proud to say the SEO wins the most, by a serious margin. (Navigational/Brand search taken out of course )

It was highlighted for me again yesterday while creating a PPC and SEO estimate for client budget approval. The PPC was 3 times the price of SEO and would generate around a 10th of the visits per month. Conservative SEO cost per visit estimate was a mere 18p compared to nearly £5 per click from PPC.

So, leaving the drum behind and focusing on the Hitwise report, are marketing managers tightening PPC budget or comparing the ROI from SEO and PPC and reallocating accordingly?

Obviously, I’m hoping for the latter, as I truly believe that the amount of money spent is massively skewed towards PPC. The last we heard, Google admitted that 80% of all clicks come from Organic search yet, according to the IAB, 80% of all search budgets are spent on PPC. Google isn’t going to keep giving us accurate figures on this and these are a little dated but I can’t see any evidence of this mindset changing on the ground. I keep hearing “My marketing director won’t be happy to move budget away from PPC”.

Perhaps SEO appears to be too good a deal? Maybe it has been sold badly for a long time? There are still “top flight” SEO agencies today that over-hype it to the point that they simply can’t deliver on their promises. We still see an awful lot of bad SEO and promises made by account managers that don’t have the experience or knowledge to give advice.

My only advice to marketing managers would be to stop treating Organic traffic as free. Strip out navigational search and compute a real cost per visit and track it. Compare it to your PPC cost in the light of conversion and bounce rate and measure which is more valuable. If it’s PPC, then so be it. If not then reallocate some budget and test again next quarter. Carry on doing this. If your SEO agency can’t outperform your PPC ditch them and get a new one, it’s not hard to do.

I can only hope that the message is already getting through. Until then I’ll pick up my drum and keep on beating it.

Study after study shows that companies in the UK and around the world are spending more of their budgets on online advertising. Now that marketing budgets are being slashed, SEO offers a longer term and more affordable option that PPC (Per Per Click) and has started to gain ground on PPC advertising. Currently, around 60% of UK online advertising budgets go to PPC, but this number is predicted to decrease as companies become more tech savvy and begin to understand the benefits of SEO.

SEO is also being used by the unemployed to find jobs. Those who know how to effectively navigate the online environment are finding jobs more easily than those using traditional methods. According to Peter McDougal, a writer for The Street, SEO is one of the top 10 skills for job seekers to learn and has become an important marketing skill.

For example, according to Computerworld.com, Brennan Carlson was able to find a new job within four weeks of losing his old one by using contacts on LinkedIn and through regular tweeting.

He started using the conventional route of sending out cover letters to advertised sites, but after about 70 attempts and with only a 5% response, he decided to use social media and SEO techniques to research companies and connect with people who could help him achieve his goal of employment.  He used custom search engines, numerous java scripts running on top of Firefox and a concentrated use of Social Networking sites. As a result, his response rate went up to 40% and he was able to find a job that he enjoyed.

According to Carlson, “If you’re not online, get online … Be everywhere. Start using these services. . . If you’re not on Twitter, get there. Start Tweeting.”

So do it!

I think the most concise response is that we help companies market their products or services in Google. I suppose Google Marketing is probably more accurate in the UK due to the search engines’ vast market share. We help client’s with their Google search marketing plans.

Most people get that fairly quickly with the odd few saying “oh the ads on the right?” Well no, we help our clients in both areas with some pretty amazing return on investment.

There are two main places to market your products and services within Google, The paid listings (top and right) are referred to as PPC because you Pay Per Click. The results on the left are natural listings often referred to organic listings.

This post covers a few basic pros and cons of each area of Google Marketing which may help you make up your mind which you should place more emphasis on.

SEO – the longer term big opportunity

Google admits that 80% of all clicks come from the organic listings, this is very relevant to the smart marketer because 80% of all search expenditure is on PPC! Any Google marketing strategy should have a key focus on the long term benefits of SEO.

Pros:

1. More click volume
2. More trust – Visitors trust the Google organic listings and that trust gets transferred to your site
3. Higher Conversion Rate than PPC – More trust = more sales
4. It gets stronger over time so the effect is cumulative and traffic generation an upward curve
5. Cost per visit is typically a tenth of the paid cost (cost per visit calculated as cost of overall SEO campaign/ number of non brand visits)
6. Highly measurable
7. Creates a barrier to entry for future competitors

Cons:

1. It’s not immediate – it’s a journey with a good agency
2. Opportunity cost of choosing the wrong agency is high as you lose time and never get that back
3. No Guarantees

Paid search – For immediate gains

Pros:

1. You have complete control and any strategy changes are instant
2. Highly measurable
3. Guaranteed

Cons:

1. More expensive per click
2. Lower conversion rates
3. Highly competitive
4. No Barrier to entry created

So which is better? Well the answer is both, Google marketing delivers fantastic return on investment whichever method you use. The combination of both methods unlocks fantastic ROI.

The key is to choose a great SEO agency, measure both monthly and shift budget appropriately every quarter, in that way you’ll get the best out of your Google marketing budget.

Answer to follow.

Just last Friday, Laurie Sullivan revealed that traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are still very, very SEO-shy. She was citing a three-year Retail Search Presence study by marketing firm Internet-Engine, which tracked holiday season search engine traffic from the big three (technically, the Big G and two also-rans) – Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live. And the news isn’t good for the retailer on the street.

Basically, online retailers snatched the biggest search share – 35%, which isn’t surprising, after all these are the people who exist online only. Next were shopping comparison sites with a much smaller 19% of search. Ye olde traditional retailers captured a rather paltry 12% of the search market. The weird thing is that the brick-and-mortar chaps are pretty clued up when it comes to PPC.

Now, if you were an offline retailer and you were looking to save money while somehow increasing your presence online, would you keep forking out money for costly PPC campaigns – which bring results, I’m not knocking them – or would you turn your eye to a far more economical – yet still effective – approach?

Thom Disch, Internet-Engine CEO, suggests that traditional retailers are used to broadcasting brands and punting specials than giving their clientele virtually unrestricted access to company information, products and services. It’s a loud-hailer approach vs. a meet-‘n-greet. Or, if you prefer a slightly more adventurous analogy, it’s like getting a seasoned boxer to climb out of the ring, where he or she (thank-you Laila Ali) is accustomed to whaling on bewildered opponents too punch drunk to notice that they’re being pummelled by unfair low-blows, and introducing said boxing champ to the concept of lively (verbal) debate, where anyone can take the floor, and judgement is reserved for the most compelling argument and not dancing like a butterfly or stinging like a bee.

It requires an enormous shift in thinking, not to mention attitude, and when last did you manage to persuade someone to change a winning formula (no matter how much evidence proves the formula no longer works)? When last did you try a complete 180 on anything in which you believed heart and soul? It’s freaking difficult.

But that’s not the end of it – and here we get to the answer part.

People are afraid, and it’s not only the average-Joes quaking in their proverbial (old, worn and glued together) boots, but the big, powerful, previously unassailable business behemoths are also fighting the overwhelming urge to phone their mommies. All you have to do is look at the state of banks in England to know the score. A US senator even tried to sell his seat for goodness’ sake (although that probably had more to do with the fact that he’s a moron than his financial circumstances).

And what do people do when they’re afraid? They shout at everyone and they avoid change the way rabid dogs avoid water. Only the very brave take the leap of faith required to survive. The extra 5% of brick-and-mortar retailers who turned toward SEO between 2007 and 2008 probably agonised over the decision. But they’ll benefit from it.

And soon (we hope) other traditionalists will follow suit. Because that’s the other thing that people do when they’re afraid: after heaping mockery and ridicule at those that dare to try something new, they fall over each other snapping at the heels of success.

(This was written by a part-time cynic who prefers the company of animals to humans and whose views do not necessarily reflect those of general society)

It’s not a secret that Google sees 80% of its clicks through natural search whereas paid search enjoys 80% of the budget assigned to search in the UK. What fails me is this message seems to be falling on deaf ears. If I were an FD (and by qualification I could be although my life expectancy would drop by 50 years ) I would be demanding a comparison of all marketing methods, stripping back on the non-accountable methods to ensure I get maximum ROI for my pound. Surely right now is the time to ask the difficult questions?

Organic search is not only typically a cheaper option per visits with trust benefits included but it’s the long term option paving the way for more revenue when the market turns. They say build in a recession and reap in a boom and SEO IMHO is the ideal activity.

Why do I say this? (When MediaVision offers both services )

Well, paid search click cost may dip through a recession but what about when the market turns? Well the click cost will soar and a lot of businesses will get back into the cycle of paying too much for their click.

Why would SEO be different?

Well SEO is a cumulative activity that will bear fruit during AND after a recession and if properly deployed will create a barrier to entry for competition when the market turns. It allows a business to thrive through the recession due to decreased lead acquisition costs and come out the other end far stronger than before.

Why is there not a mass panic shift to organic?

Well probably because of the mindset, the budgets that are moving into search are moving from TV, newspaper and so on where the culture is pay for coverage so paid search makes more sense. These are competitive areas too (when last did you see a publication with only 1 major player in a sector covered). The shift to an accountable pay per visit model seems like a jump so far into bliss that any options further seem too risky to be true. The industry is probably not helped by the immense amount of spammy bottom feeders but that is a story for another day.

When could it happen?

Well if we use the dot com bubble as an example then hype created only changed the consumer behaviour years later then predicted. That said this is a more educated market so possibly a lot quicker than 5 years. I’m guessing we will see the percentages equal in 2 to 3 years and that certainly will be a better situation for quality agencies. That’s my guess anyway, what’s yours?

It’s a handy tool in that its results eliminate the terms you are already optimising for. If you have an Adwords account, and are logged in, then it will only display those keywords that your account is not currently advertising. One of the most convenient things about the tool is that you insert your URL and it then searches your site for missing keywords, as opposed to sitting on the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and going through hundreds of possible keyword options, which will then need to be checked against your site to see if they are already optimised for.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not slating Google’s other keyword tool and personally find it very valuable. It definitely has its benefits, and is especially helpful if you are looking for the long-tail variations of a particular key phrase. It also limits the keyword derivatives and search volumes to your targeted country. I’m not entirely sure if the new Search-based Tool limits the search results to specific countries’ volumes/derivatives according to the URL entered (.com, .co.uk, .co.za), but it poses a number of problems for .gov and .org domains for instance. Another option is that the tool bases the search results on where the site is hosted, but this has its own set of problems as often sites are hosted outside of their target market’s geographical positioning.

After entering your URL and key phrases, the tool displays the results page which will look something like this:

Scanning through the terms that your site is not yet optimising for can deliver some interesting results, especially when some of the missing terms are close to terms already being optimised, but which are not quite covered. There may also be some simple terms missing from your existing account. At this point you should consider which terms will bring in the best ROI and add them to your Adwords account immediately, so as not to miss out on potential business.

This tool is, of course, beneficial for Google as well because they expect it to encourage online advertisers to increase their Google Adwords spend. This in turn helps Google fill their pockets while they ‘help’ various online companies benefit from the potentially business enhancing suggestions. Even though I haven’t used it extensively, I find it to be a valuable addition to Google’s various search engine optimisation tools. This being said, be aware that this may not be the final say on the matter from my side:)

Consumers need to be smarter about their purchasing behaviour and that means turning to the web where there are more options, more information and fiercer competition.
As High Street retailers start to feel the pinch, online retail sales are set to rise to a staggering £13.16 billion in the last quarter of 2008. This is a 15% rise year-on-year, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index.

This calculation equates to £215 spent online by each person in the UK. Specifically, the online sales of clothing and footwear are expected to rise 25% each year to £1.27 million with the sale of beer, wine and spirits set to rise to £233 million.

Monday 8th December is expected to be the biggest online shopping day of 2008 in the UK, with the projected tally set at £320 million. Forty two per cent of those sales will take place outside “normal” shopping hours, i.e. before 9am or after 6pm. Interestingly, the peak shopping hour is expected to take place between 1 and 2pm on Monday 8th December when it is expected that £28 million will be spent online. This is double the amount spent online during the peak hour of 2006 for the same time period. IMRG chief executive James Roper says,

“British shoppers will beat the crunch with Internet prices this Christmas, spending more than £1 billion each week in the run-up. The Internet is well established as one of consumers’ most powerful economic weapons against tough times. Retailers and suppliers will be under extreme pressure to price competitively this year, so there will be a lot of volatility – and fantastic bargains – that the Internet uniquely enables canny shoppers to find and grab before anyone else gets the chance.”

It looks as if online sales will weather the economic storm, as online continues to be where retailers look to for development. As customer expectation increases, so too do the standards of online retail. If you are an online retailer and want to take advantage of this massive opportunity, the time is now.

It’s time to zoop up your website, maximise its efficiency with a solid SEO strategy, and make sure it’s in tip-top shape because the future is not as gloomy as it appears to be. The time for online retail is NOW!

Silly as this sounds, it makes sense. Despite his post being dated almost a year old, the principles around link juice still apply. A combination of good onsite optimisation –meta tags, titles, URL names, keyword density and relevant keywords and information surrounding the main topical keywords in the copy, strategic, and hierarchically structured internal linking – and a handful of really good, relevant anchor text rich inbound links are undoubtedly a pathway to ranking and search engine traffic.

If there is one thing that I can take away from the search engine analysis industry, it’s that cheap tricks are not the way to get far commercially. You might fool a search engine at first, you might achieve a bout of good rankings, a spurt of traffic here and there, and maybe a few conversions, but the best way to success in the online world – same as offline – is to produce genuine content, where your primary goal is to actually give the visitor something a little more useful than they can get elsewhere, or to give them something that they cannot find anywhere else. .

Uniqueness, originality and idiosyncrasy ensure that your visitors are qualified, because they will more than likely have arrived at your site by looking specifically for what you offer. Innovation in what you present and how you present it will get you further, because if you offer what everyone else does, they will hop around your page and all the others like it. But if you add some special ingredients, they will spend most of that hopping time finding out what more they can get from you.

The wiki pages that occupy those first search results pages for informational queries may provide long drawn out explanations that encompass every aspect of a topic, and answer your question in an academic way, but you’re not always searching for that particular answer. Sometimes you want to be led down a path to something that will benefit you more. Invitation has a big place in website architecture and can be used to help people find value.

Some people might think that “salesy” writing is superficially superfluous rubbish that says more than is necessary to help visitors find what they need. If done excessively, this is definitely true. But, if you simply use this style to brighten up and make what you offer more “standoutish” and appealing, then you have done your job. There is balance in every approach.

Having laser beams heat up your pages is great, and the way to ensure greater trust and more natural inbound links is to be something that people really want to have or use. So please, all you adsense-blogspot-content-scraping-non-link-reciprocating-syndicators out there, just take down your spam sites. All you Joe Soap plumbers, corner shops and gardening services, sign up with Google local and get optimised for local search. Oh, and start a free blog and write to it every day.