A Site For All to See
Optimizing your website to improve visibility and increase traffic
How Search Engines and Directories Work - Page 4 of 9
Search Engines/Directories
Search engine use is increasing dramatically every year. According to the Online Activities and Pursuits Report from the Pew Internet Project published on November 27, 2005, the number of users that use search engines on a daily basis increased by about 55% from June 2004 to September 2005, from about 39 million to 59 million.
Users can use search engines and directories to research a company, a product/service, or to find information. Most everyone has heard of Google and Yahoo!, the two behemoths in the search engine/directory world. But there are also many highly specialized vertical search engines and directories which may send greater numbers of qualified traffic to your site.
Search engines/directories can and do help users to find what they are looking for and are important to be listed in. They are not, however, the only source for answers to users’ questions. Good research as to how and where users go to find their information will help determine how much you should focus on search vehicles.
How are you found on search engines?
Organic optimization of your site and pay-per-click advertising can help users to find you for certain targeted keyword phrases.
Organic Optimization
Optimizing your site organically involves reviewing where your users are looking for information about you, then, tailoring your site in order to gain maximum attention from these engines or directories.
Organic (also called natural) optimization focuses primarily on search engines and involves optimization of on-the-page factors, as well as off-the-page factors. The most prominent of these factors include site programming, the design and copy content of your website and how successful you’ve been at building your link popularity (see Search Engine Rank Builders, above.)
Again, the goal is to make your site an expert authority in its space. To do this, your site needs to be optimized for certain keywords, easily viewable by the search engines, have unique and updated content and have well-placed external and internal linking structures.
Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising and Optimization
Pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising is the fastest way to drive qualified traffic to your site. It is, however, oftentimes very competitive and can be very costly if not managed properly.
Statistics show that roughly 3 out of every 4 clicks made after someone uses a search engine goes to the natural or organic listings. So if you are ranking well naturally, you may be capturing 75% of your traffic. But why ignore the other 25%? In this scenario you would use PPC search advertising to supplement your already strong position.
If, however, you are finding it difficult to move your site into the first page of results in the natural rankings, PPC search should be used to immediately fill that gap.
PPC searching has matured a great deal over the last few years, one consequence of which being that you may very well find that many of your competitors are already bidding on keyword phrases which are important to you. Because you will be paying money for every qualified visitor who arrives at your site, it is of extreme importance that you be able to monetize the value of those visitors. If you have e-Commerce and sell a product or service through your website, this task becomes a little easier. You simply analyze how many sales you made and what your net revenue is from those specific sales, then compare that figure to your total cost of the PPC search traffic and you’ll know whether you’re pulling in cash hand over fist, or just flushing money away. If you don’t have sales as an online conversion option, you’ll need to use a relevant cost-per-conversion standard (whether that be a lead, email sign-up, document/coupon download, etc.) as your success metric and then follow the same comparative process.
The most important thing to do with a paid search program is to continually analyze your results and your return on your advertising investment. This will tell you if you can afford to be the top listing or if maybe the 3rd or 4th position is where you’ll see the highest return.
If managed and optimized correctly, it is virtually impossible not to get a positive return from a PPC program. The question, really, is if the sales/conversion volume at that level enough to justify the energy and focus of managing it.
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