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emanuelh
True. But all speculations are not born equal, and this one is worthless.
There's no reason to believe Google measure CTR for organic results and make it a parameter of the consolidated relevance score. There are strong reasons against it: 1. it perpetuates the top 10 listings in the top rankings; 2. it is very difficult to prevent manipulation of their results by fake visits.
However, there are some cases in which Google becomes active and may push down some sites to let others make it to the top: 1. when there's not enough variety in the top results (all ten rankings for the name of a disease are occupied by lawyers' sites and there's no informative site); 2. when there's strong ambiguity in the search query itself (for instance, a certain Mr. Obama is reported to be dating Brooke Shields). In this case it may use a CTR sample and push down the presidential candidate's site for a while, till interest in the other Obama fades away. 3. personalized search
Vox populi vox Dei - @ SeekGeek: what is the CTR/bounce rate data adding to improve relevance as measured by the already extremely sophisticated ranking algorithm of Google?
@ 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?
Nonsense. ROI for whom? It is very probably true that sites listed in top rankings have a much better ROI in comparison to having spent the same budget on PPC, but the author ignores the fact that most of the money spent on SEO goes down the drain because the sites fail to get top rankings. After all there are only ten places in Google's Top Ten!
And therefore some of us (at most ten per search query) are underpaid indeed, while most of us - those who fail - are very much overpaid.
@ Gab - SEO is a gradual process by which most websites fail to reach their objectives - Top 10 rankings for each of the targeted search queries. The few others get the precious prize of a share in a monopoly.
Most of the SEOs are indeed incompetent. As in any profession that does not restrict the right to practice to those who can demonstrate competence. But even the most competent ones must fail if they are not allocated the sufficient SEO budget to overcome the existing Top 10 listings. Which happens much more often than not.
@ rishilakhani - You are describing a New York marathon race in which a single participant runs among all those people resting on the grass of Central Park. Obviously, with time, every arena (top SERP for given search query - short or long tail) that promises some traffic will become more and more competitive, as more and more SEO workers are working gradually to the top, where there's place for only ten.
The budget issue is ill-understood by all SEO workers, so I'm not surprised by your remarks.
a. The sufficient budget for climbing from # 11 to # 10, for instance, is determined by the unknowable relevance score gap between the two web pages.
b. The sufficient budget is further determined by the rate at which the web page at # 10 gains relevance score over time. If the rate at which the page at # 11 gains relevance score is lower, it will never catch up and become # 10.
SEO is about getting top rankings (not merely higher but higher within the top), so that the traffic that goes to the top rankings will enter your client's website at the expense of the sites of his competitors. Period. Anything else, useful and important as it may be, is not SEO.
Neither shouting capitals like this nor a bunch of loud cheerleaders will make your weak arguments win the case. Try thinking harder.
@ mvandemar: I have invented sophisticated keyword research a few years ago, when SEO workers still consulted Wordtracker for the most popular keywords, stuffed them into the pages and charged customers by the number of keywords.
Our task became the selection of the most popular key phrases for which the competition is low enough so that the SEO budget is sufficient to get top rankings for. And soon enough we started to sell the service of comprehensive preliminary Internet Market Research, of 20-30 workhours, resulting in a responsible report whether the client's SEO budget was sufficient for success on the search engines. It was very different from the common 2-3 hours of keyword research SEO workers still do. And we sold this service also to clients for which it turned out that they shouldn't invest in the development of a website and the subsequent SEO, saving them a lot of money.
Same for designing snippets. Ask neyne how we used to spend hours on each one and how we used to ornament the Titles meant for Yahoo's $299/year directory with baits designed for the editors to cut down, leaving precisely what we wanted to be shown. Keyword research and metatag and snippet writing belong to SEO, as I wrote above: SEO is about getting top rankings (not merely higher but higher within the top), so that the traffic that goes to the top rankings will enter your client's website at the expense of the sites of his competitors. Creative keyword research and creative metatag and snippet writing belong to top-league SEO.
@ neyne - Usability is critical for turning traffic into conversions, once it has entered the site. It does not belong to SEO but it should be incorporated into web design.
@ bbcarter - Analyzing the statistical data is fundamental indeed, crucial for SEO and part of its practice since it often directs you what to do next. But clients want SEO ROI figures prior to starting SEO! And, as I wrote in my first comment, the truth is that most of the money spent on SEO goes down the drain because the sites fail to get top rankings. After all there are only ten places in Google's Top Ten!
Well, as the SEO worker needs much more brains nowadays (or help from external brains), so does the designer. Won't you prefer a client who brings a nearly-perfect website in terms of usability?
And if you surprisingly learn from the statistics that your site's visitors are mainly young mothers, isn't it a sure sign of careless market targetting?
neyne, is your Oedipus complex especially active after midnight?
You can ask what is the ROI on the sum spent on usability work, performed on a site that has no traffic from search engines due to poor or insufficient SEO work, that has not achieved top rankings versus competitors even for longtail search queries, that does not spend on PPC and has no other means for attracting visitors. Things are of course interdependent.
If you want to compare PPC ROI versus "pure SEO" ROI it is silly, as I've pointed out, to measure only the results of the sites ranking at the top, as if it is only a matter of time till your client's site will be at the top as well. (And what about the SEO ROI of the site that has thereby just fallen from the top?)
In this game, for every search query exhibiting a short or a long tail, a few win and get the positive ROI prize but the majority lose and get nothing. If your client's site does not get top rankings for some search queries to balance, in terms of overall ROI, its failure to get top rankings in others, it has a negative ROI. And since, unlike in the early days of SEO, for almost every search query worthy of SEO there are many more websites trying than there is available room, most money spent on SEO will go down the drain.
There are at least two approaches to learning SEO. One is the technician's approach - "give me a list of what exactly to do, but don't strain my precious few grey cells" - and it gets what it asks for in Dan Thies's "SEO Fast Start" textbook.
That's where the textbook fails. By skipping the theory the technician cannot understand why for one search query working for half an hour was sufficient for climbing from # 11 to # 10 in Google, and for another search query, for which he started at # 11 as well, an effort of two hundred workhours accomplished nothing. After all there's just one step to climb for both!
I read this complaint several times a day, at the Israeli forum where I contribute heavily, from the victims of this technical approach to teaching SEO.
@aschobey: how for instance does it help you calculate the amount of work required to bring a website to # 10 in Google for your prospective client's website?
@NickWilsdon Experience does not help calculating (or even estimating within a margin of 40% on both sides) the amount of work required to bring a website to # 10 in Google for your prospective client's website. You have no way to assess quantitatively, within the same margins, the competitiveness of one SERP in comparison with another.
The explanation of why this is so is omitted from Dan Thies's textbook. And therefore whoever learns SEO from it is not aware why climbing from # 11 to # 10 in one SERP is quantitatively different from climbing from # 11 to # 10 in another.
@DanThies The amount of theory needed to understand why climbing from # 11 to # 10 in one SERP is quantitatively different from climbing from # 11 to # 10 in another, would be sufficient.
Dan, I'm doing SEO since 1999, but I took the trouble to focus on theory as well, besides practical tips. I repeat - without understanding why climbing from # 11 to # 10 in one SERP is quantitatively different from climbing from # 11 to # 10 in another, SEO workers do not understand what they do, do not understand what they should do, and provide their clients with imaginary price quotes.
Obviously, very few took the trouble to read the six-part linking course.
@ jaybong I'm not asking what is the relative value of being # 10 for online casino versus the value of being # 10 for travel europe.
I ask why climbing from # 11 to # 10 for online casino is quantitatively different from climbing from # 11 to # 10 for travel europe. After all, the sum that's going to be written in the price quote depends on this distinction, especially if you have indeed just climbed from # 11 to # 10 for travel europe.
An SEO candidate for employment in our firm who cannot understand this distinction is deemed
incompetent.
Dan, one could argue that, in the absence of any other data, the relevance score gap between # 6 and # 2 is obviously smaller than that between # 8 and 2, and it will require therefore less resources to close. You could argue that, based on the observation of historical rankings data of the top 100-200 listings for [books] for 6-12 months, showing a rather high stability of the rankings of all other pages, Amazon's inner page has been gaining relevance score for some 12 months at a rate that is much higher than any other page, and it is highly probable that it will become # 2 before Abe Books's page. Moreover you can demonstrate perhaps that Amazon's inner page gains inbound links at a very high rate, all created independently by the owners of other sites, with zero effort on Amazon's part.
The point is not who is right and who is wrong in this particular debate, but whether an SEO worker trained in the spirit of a technical textbook acquires the conceptual tools needed to understand what this debate is about, and whether he is able to implement the outcome of such a debate into his daily work. I very much doubt it.
Erratum: I've meant to write: ...based on the observation of historical rankings data of the top 100-200 listings for [books] for 6-12 months, showing a background of a rather high stability of the rankings of all other pages, Amazon's inner page has climbed steadily from # 500 to # 8, demonstrating that it has been gaining relevance score for some 12 months at a rate that is much higher than any other page, and it is highly probable that it will become # 2 before Abe Books's page
Let me just add that, since I have no access to historical rankings data, this is not a description of facts but the description of a hypothetical situation just for the sake of the argument.
I didn't call myself a victim. I don't need your textbook. The "victims" are the credulous people looking for a high-tech profession (and income!) with no entrance exams nor qualification exams, and who are tacitly encouraged to believe that by following a list of technical instructions their client's site will climb in rankings up to # 1.
But there is perhaps a penalty in stopping getting many links quickly. Read more at: http://www.seo-scientist.com/unconventional-link-attributes.html
@ infomonkey - And what is the ROI a client who pays for SEO services devoted fully to rankings in the organic results is likely to achieve as a result?
Story: Does Google Use Click-Thru Rate (CTR) in their Organic Listings too?