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After working in Search Engine Optimisation for over three years, one of the most common questions I’m asked by those I meet is "what exactly is SEO?" or ‘website optimisation’ as it is also typically known. Here I begin to answer this question, covering commonly misunderstood concepts and dispelling popular SEO myths!
7 Comments
7 Comments
Comments
Big task!
I disagree with the definition:
I recently performed SEO on a site to reduce the traffic. It had far too much overly generic search presence and not enough specific, more prequalified referrals (e.g. long tail queries). As a result of having too much over-generic, under-qualified traffic, the bounce rates were over 60%, and the conversion rate was apalling.
With SEO, we made the targeting of search terms that were less generic, better pre-qualified, quality leads the priority, and actively sought to reduce the over-generic positions. End result is that the site has lost around 15% of its traffic, but has already in the first month risen by a good 12% in actual sales volumes. Obviously, the conversion rate has gone up by around 20% (percentage of rate, not absolute percentage of course).
Additionally, sometimes the true mastery of positioning is not to be number 1, but to be around the third site most people shopping around will visit. This is true where many vendors have essentially the same price and deals. People arriving at the first site and seeing the price won't know if its a high or low price yet. They have to visit a second site to see if that offers a better deal. Seeing around the same deal again there, they now know site 1 wasn't ripping them off, but you know what, they'll often try another site from the results looking for a lower price. Seeing the same sort of deal again on site three, they decide to settle.
Do you think they feel any sort of loyalty to site one to go BACK to that site to get the same deal in front of them on site 3?
In this precise situation, it was found that around position 7 was optimal for volume of sales. Higher got more traffic, but less conversions as people stilll shopped on. Lower tended to tail off as more customers had settled before reaching positions below 7th.
These are both SEO tasks.
They both fall outside your definition, and go against it.
QED, the definition is false.
@Ammon:
ah.. Interesting points about reducing the traffic with more pre-qualified search engine traffic.
I too have some trouble to lower my bounce rate. I got too much traffic from common keywords traffic, which increase the bounce rate. At then end, the conversion rate is so low.
Thanks! I felt better to tweek my keywords.
Nice wikipedia quote
What i find most interesting is that lots and lots of so called "seo's" define "search engine optimisation' as the process of increasing both the volume and quality of traffic to a website.
Do you not find that it is better to increase relative and targeted traffic to a website for key phrases which are actually searched for by the target audience. Most SEO experts think / believe that by getting more traffic you get more sales - This viewpoint is totally the wrong way to look at it. I'd personally from a business viewpoint be more interested in getting 2 visitors who turn into enquiries / sales than 100 that stay as visitors only.
@ ammon: the smart SEO you describe (reducing traffic, by descending to lower rankings, in order to increase conversion rate) is limited to arenas characterised by online sales and other direct means of representing the converted visitor.
Moreover, it is a risky procedure. For instance, how do you stabilise your # 7 ranking? Isn't it much easier (though more expensive) to stabilise a # 1 ranking? What do you think?
This makes absolutely no sense, unless you left something out:
Emphasis mine. Why would you do that? Why not simply let them be, and focus efforts on the better converting keywords? Yes, increasing the rankings of the better converting keywords of course will increase sales, and according to what you said more than enough to make up for the lost trickle you were getting from the untargeted traffic... but in the end the client still lost sales that it would have had otherwise.
I mean, the only benefit I can see is that it increased the conversion ratio more that way, thus making you look better to a client who might not fully understand what the numbers mean. Or was there more you did not mention? Does this look right? Assuming that targeted converts 5x better than untargeted (5% vs 1%, for instance):
Hypothetical numbers:
Pre-reduction -
Traffic: 10k hits per day
Targeted traffic: 1k hits per day
Conversion percentage: 1.4%
Sales: 140 units per day
Post-reduction -
Traffic: 7k hits per day
Targeted traffic: 3k hits per day
Conversion percentage: 2.71%
Sales: 190 units per day
Had you increased without decreasing -
Traffic: 12k hits per day
Targeted traffic: 3k hits per day
Conversion percentage: 2%
Sales: 240 units per day
I would agree that of course spending effort on low converting traffic isn't a good use of time and money... but I would think that putting work into removing the traffic is pointless (unless, as I said, it was done to make the final result just look better at first glance).
mvandemar asked:
Good question. The answer doesn't lie in SEO, it lies in marketing. It is all about customer experience. It is about making a good first impression.
The over-generic terms were creating more negative experiences than positive. A large majority of the potential customers were getting a negative branding experience of my client's brand. Their first experience with the brand was one of great disappointment. That company X didn't have what they wanted, and couldn't help them.
People's minds simplify things. A week after that negative experience, they won't remember their search terms, only that when shopping around in whatever vertical niche, company X was a waste of time. That bit sticks. To the extent that they may well actively avoid that brand in related SERPs for a fair while. Its the natural and obvious flip-side of the same effect that makes people select familiar brands they have positive notions of from a SERP.
Negative branding costs. It costs more than a 1% conversion rate would make up for. And in some cases, the conversion rate on those terms may be lower than 1%, with a 70% bounce rate on top.
Branding is all about building a positive relationship - a feeling of trust - through consistent positive experiences and positive associations. Everyone knows that. So why do people struggle to spot the obvious flip-side?