Quality SEO
Thursday, February 14, 2008
In addition to what my colleague, Adam Edwards, writes below on the ROI of SEO, I would like to present an example that illustrates that it is not just important to invest in SEO, but to invest in quality SEO.
GoCompare.com, a UK site that allows users to compare car insurance rates, used to rank number one on Google for the coveted term: "car insurance". What this translated to was that 17.49% of people searching on that term would visit the site. As you can imagine, this amounts to a huge number of people as "car insurance" is a very popular search term.
Not surprisingly, this term was responsible for most of the traffic to GoCompare.com. Even more so than its actual name spaced out: "Go Compare".
At the end of the week of January 28th, GoCompare.com lost its coveted number one ranking because Google uncovered dubious inbound linking to the site. Apparently, GoCompare.com had invested a bit too much in the pay-per-blog "methodology", which provides links to a site (which helps with optimization) for a fee.
So, how did GoCompare.com rank after it was found out? From number one, it plummeted to the obscurity of the seventh Google search page. Needless to say, the results were detrimental.
Just 2.31% of people searching on "car insurance" went to the site the following week. This equaled to an 87% decrease in traffic! The part that probably hurt the most was the gains made by GoCompare.com's competitors, the search traffic for which increased as much as 77% in the aftermath.
Google rightly decided to hone in on the practice of paying for inbound links as it falsely portrays a sense of authority. Your site is not ranking highly on a term because you offer quality data on the particular topic, but because you paid some key blogs and other sites to link to you.
So beware! Many SEO firms that claim to shoot your site right to the top of your most important search terms are probably using these unethical practices, to which Google is catching up.
Quality SEO, just like anything else that's worthwhile, takes time. At Connors, for instance, we build your site content out so that it is SEO friendly and worthy of a searcher's attention.
Our technique does not just ensure success in the relative near future, but also for years to come. Please refer to Adam's eloquent metaphor below to get a better idea of this important difference.Labels: Connors Communications, optimization, seo, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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The Growing Internet
Friday, October 12, 2007
Yesterday, a bylined article on the topic of our soon-to-be antiquated Internet infrastructure was published on CNET by Michael Keenan from UC San Diego. In it, Keenan stressed the significance of the fact that in the near future, the Web will no longer hold the demand that we are putting on it.
Michael explained that when the Internet was created, its size and use was undermined, but the limitations of the structure were not truly felt until recently. After all, it was not that long ago that we used the World Wide Web for just email. Now-a-days, we use it for pretty much everything. In Keenan's words, "[t]he Internet has gone from a complement to everyday living to a principal platform for business and personal activities."
While his article went down the path of discussing the sad state of broadband in the U.S., which, by the way, is in 15th place worldwide, behind countries like South Korea, I would like to go back to this notion of the Internet's importance in our role as influencers. I think this idea is hard for some to grasp because those Internet-free days or days of it being "a complement" are not too far gone. Yet, it is undeniable, we don't just use it to stay in touch with family and friends, but for essentially any information that we need. At which restaurant to eat; how to get there; and what to do afterwards. We decide all these things and more from the information we get online.
This is why it is crucial to have an optimized website. Meaning, your site needs to come up in search results that are initiated by words that are associated with your business. What am I talking about? For kicks, try typing "pr firm" into Google. In the first 2 pages of Google results, you will find 3 or 4 actual PR firms, one of them is Connors Communications. Is it such a leap to say that many businesses begin their search for a PR firm just this way?
In another article in MediaPost, Anand Subramanian writes about the concept of "The Long Tail" and its importance to advertising. He references eMarketer's 2006 report that found that "Internet users spent 61% of their time online outside of the top 20 domains, which includes most major social networking sites and web portals."
For advertising, it means that media buyers need to spend money outside of the top 20, and for public relations professionals, it means that we have to channel these niche markets with as much vigor, if not more, than those top 20.
But don't panic! This should come as a relief. Of those top 20, perhaps half are actual news sites like The New York Times and Google News. We all know the challenge in getting placements in this type of media. What these results indicate is that by compiling a list of relevant and attainable blogs and niche news sites, our PR campaigns can be even more effective than hitting the New York Times once or twice. Labels: Internet, new media, optimization, Public Relations, search, The Long Tail, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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How much should keywords cost?
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Nothing. eMarketer recently ran a story on the cost of keywords, a new metric coined from the cost per click camp. And, as expected, the cost went up in every market. Some keywords went up by as much as 10%! To avoid this holiday rush, wouldn't it be cheaper to pay one flat fee and start generating traffic on countless keywords through search engine optimization instead? It's literally impossible to brainstorm let alone manage a paid keyword campaign for all of the ways people could think of to arrive at your website. A proper keyword optimization project can improve you across the board. Besides, it's better to have your terms working for you all year round, and in the much more credible natural results. As web users become more savvy, they are going to continue to prefer natural keywords to sponsored listings.Labels: optimization, seo
posted by Adam Edwards
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