BarnRaisers

80% of people begin their journey to a website through the query on a search engine. Once they type in specific keywords, 46% click on the #1 website listed in organic search. To show you, here is a brief :30 clip.

In this controlled video test, called a “heat map,” people use keywords to search for an unmet need and then click on the website that best meets their need. The blue circles are the mouse movements of many individual searches and the hot colors represent where the most activity occurs.

Conclusions are: 1) Know the most relevant keywords for your business or brand and 2) get to a top position. But does that mean you should focus your attention on what might cause search engines to give you a top rank at the expense of writing for your audience? Never.

Here are 25 reasons to write for your audience before the search engines.

1. Search engines are not mind readers
2. Search engines can’t figure out who your target audience is
3. Search engines don’t know where they spend time online
4. Search engines can’t reach out to them
5. Search engines don’t raise your rank until you start attracting an audience to your website
6. Search engines can’t: 1) Be relevant, 2) educate and 3) persuade to increase your business as well as your rank
7. Search engines are dumb. They don’t recognize what’s relevant. They recognize text patterns
8. Search engines aren’t smart enough to know whether the text patterns are you talking to your audience or you talking to yourself
9. Search engines don’t know if your text is written in a natural flow and reads well
10. Search engines don’t know the difference between an introduction and a call to action
11. Search engines can’t “link” your site with other influential sites to raise your rank by recognizing your website as an authority
12. Search engine can’t ask your audiences for comments to more “links” and raise your rank
13. Search engines can’t read your analytics to optimize the keywords and content that is raising your rank
14. Search engines don’t recognize whether the audience coming to your site is there to: 1) research, 2) shop or 3) buy
15. Search engines can’t share your content
16. Search engines can’t speak your audience’s language or feel their pain
17. Search engines can’t give your audience what they want
18. Search engines can’t survey your audience so you keep improving your website and keep them coming back
19. Search engines can’t install “breadcrumbs,” the  navigation aid used in user interfaces to allow users to keep track of their locations within programs or documents
20. Search engines can’t keep your content fresh
21. Search engines can’t add testimonials or reviews which is the language of your audience and is similar to those who might be searching for your site
22. Search engine can’t create and keep a customer
23. Search engines can’t recognize advocates
24. Search engines can’t reward your loyal customer
25. Search engines can’t make your personality shine through. Your personality counts because people like to do business with people they know

Of course, for digital marketing, the search engine play a critical role but they will never take the place of good research, high levels of involvement and strong, well-written content.

I am fortunate to be teaching a “hands on” Mini-MBA in SEO, SEM and Web Analytics through Rutgers University and with two colleagues, Mike Moran and Tim Peter. Creating a content strategy and writing great content are an area of focus. If this is of interest, here are the details.

Will you be writing for your audience before the search engines?

Consider these facts:

• 80% of consumers find your website by first writing a query into a box on a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing)
• 42% chose the first site listed in organic search
• 90% choose a site listed on the first page

These facts suggest, for anyone doing business on the internet, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a first orders of business.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines via the “natural,” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”), search results, as defined by Wikipedia.

Although there are plenty of SEO case studies, it can be hard to find case studies that directly prove return on investment (ROI). In the quest for a top rank on Google and increased website traffic, it’s easy to forget the most essential question to ask: What action(s) do you want consumers to take when they get to your website?

To show what’s achievable, here are 10 case studies that prove the ROI of SEO.

1. COMPLETE PLUMBING SOURCE: An e-commerce online source for homeowners and do-it-yourself plumbers who want quality and affordable plumbing supplies and tools from leading brands, completeplumbingsource.com’s number one goal was to drive targeted traffic to their site and generate product sales through a seamless online buying process. Keyword discovery led to an optimization of the top revenue-producing pages and  landing page optimization. Within four months, website traffic increased +169%, conversion increased +202% and sales increased by +300%.

2. DICKIES: An online store for Dickies Work Wear focused on the quality and quantity of organic search traffic. They focused on keywords and phrase for those reaching the DickiesStore website with “Dickies” related phrases as well as more generic phrases such as “workwear” and “safety boots” etc. Within six months,  DickiesStore dominated the SERP’S (Search Engine Results Page) for “Dickies” related keywords; an extremely competitive niche in which many suppliers of the Dickies brand are constantly competing for top rankings. Within a year, the SEO strategy resulted in an increase of 63% in non-branded traffic and 47% increase in sales.

3. DOLLAR DAYS: An online e-commerce wholesaler that helps smaller businesses compete against larger chain, dollardays.com used videos for its eclectic product offering to capture long tail key words. They also video indexed each product video for Google’s search algorithms using a video sitemap. The result was a huge and immediate +75% increase in sales.

4. ENTREPRENEUR: Sought to increase site traffic and downloads of it huge number of articles at entrepreneur.com. That’s because increases in site traffic and involvement increased advertising rates and revenues. They instituted an SEO program in three stages: In Stage 1, they optimized the web page. In Stage 2, they optimized keywords, links and content for descriptions of the articles. In Stage 3, they integrated SEO into the entire business process. The result was an estimated return of over $2 million dollars PER MONTH (calculated by determining the revenue from additional number of click-throughs since they began the SEO program, minus the SEO expenses incurred).

5. MILLENIUM HOTELS:  A prominent hotel chain with over 110 hotels and resorts located in over 60 different destinations in 18 countries, Millenium used SEO to: 1) Achieve higher placements for highly competitive generic search phrase, 2) attract seasonal traffic and 3) promote seasonal offers online. Within a year, Millenium saw increases of: 1) 250,000 visitor per month, 2) 84% in organic traffic and 3) 70% in online reservations bookings.

6. PHILLYDENTIST.COM: Dr. Ken Cirka, DMD, had no relevant keywords on his website in the areas of  title tags, body copy, and headers, some of  the most important factors in search engine rankings for on-site optimization. During this time, he received one new patient per week. However, after making these changes, he rose to the #1 position for the keywords, “Philadelphia dentist,” and  received nine new patients each week. Nine month later, Dr. Cirka hired another dentist and additional staff.

7. ROTTEN TOMATOES: A movie review site that started out as a hobby, rottentomatoes.com was built by SEO. The Rotten Tomatoes team observed that most people searched for movie reviews by searching on the movie name or for actors in a film, not for a movie review itself.  Therefore Rotten Tomatoes architected the site to give each individual movie its own Rotten Tomatoes mini-site to boost natural search rankings. The SEO strategy was so successful that features such as “Tomatometer” are now a high volume keyword and Rotten Tomatoes is one of the top 5 movie review sites in the world.

8. VICTORIA INN:  a resort inn in a unique heritage building on the south shore of Rice Lake at Gore’s Landing, Ontario. Victoria Inn wanted to use its website as a reservation sales tool to attract new bookings for the inn. For the broadest possible sales and bookings, the keyword phrases needed to work with local and regional geographical locator terms. Victoria Inn achieved more than 370 top ten ranking positions and 152 #1 ranking for an 85% increase in reservations bookings.

9. VOICES.COM: One of the leading marketplaces for voice-over talent, voices.com studied competitive sites, keywords, visitor intensions between those looking to hire and those looking to hire voice-over talent. The resulting site overhaul and SEO keyword discovery increased conversions rates on the site by 400%.

10. WATER GALLERY: An internet-only business that offers handcrafted, indoor water fountains that are designed to fit on walls or floors and made with stones, pebbles and marble, watergallery.net did a full site redesign to make it more search engine friendly and added PayPal buttons so people could pay online. Sales increased +500% within 6 months and gross margin increased +300%.

These case studies prove, whether  company is large or small, selling something that is familiar or new, SEO is foundational for business building.

But the #1 priority is focus on the desired business because SEO strategies and tactics vary based on a business’s goals. If you’re clear about who you want to attract and the action(s) you want them to take on your once they get to your site, you’ll see the results and ROI a lot faster.

What do these 10 case studies on the ROI of SEO prove to you?

Blogs are, in my opinion, the workhorse of social media.  Scratch that.  Blogs are the workhorse of online marketing.  Scratch that.  Blogs do a lot of heavy lifting in marketing.

Since the primary currency for blogs, like social media in general, is time and smart thinking, one reason for this opinion is blogs deliver high return of investment, especially if you think through the right steps which are:

• Choose your area of expertise and niche wisely
• Define business goals
• Share information freely
• Be passionate about topics you write about
• Post consistently
• Write with your audience in mind
• Know the action you want them to take
• Measure and learn from results

For people and companies that invest the time and thinking, the numbers are in your favor you will see significant results.  Need proof?  Here are 9 numbers and charts that show how blogs drive ROI.

1.  95% REPORT HIGHER SEARCH RANK:  Blogs can drive search rank with a bullet.  They are a dynamic way to:  1) Use the keywords consumers use to find you and 2) generate “links” from others who share similar interests as well as exchange your ”links” by commenting on their blogs.  The value of “links” is they establish ”authority” in your areas of expertise.  “Authority” is the primary criteria search engines use for rankings.

2.  75% OF US READ AT LEAST ONE BLOG A DAY:  Blogs are read with a great deal of frequency these days.  In fact, the great majority of us read at least one a day.

2.  70% SAY BLOGS INFLUENCE WHAT WE BUY:  Most of us respect information, advice and opinions we get from blogs to the point where it “somewhat” or “very much” affects our purchase decisions as this chart from Hubspot shows:

4.  55% OF COMPANIES WITH BLOGS DRIVE MORE VISITORS TO THEIR WEBSITES:  Traffic from blogs can go to websites and be captured by the search engines as web traffic.  There are a number of way to integrate your blog to your website.    From worst to best, they are: 1) Host on a unique domain through a solution like WordPress or on a sub-domain (these can be treated as unique from the primary domain by the engines) and 2) add as a sub-section of the primary domain (in a sub-folder or page – this is the best solution).  Regardless of how you do it, the numbers indicate you will drive more web traffic.

5.  45% TRACK ADDITIONAL REVENUE DUE TO THEIR BLOG:  Almost half of the people or companies who blog realize revenue from their blog.  This is reported as direct revenue from: 1) Consumers who first write comments and then turn into customers or clients, 2) prospects who find a company through the immediacy of a blogpost that speaks to them as opposed to numerous navigation tabs that don’t, 3) customer service issues that are addressed and resolved on blogs, 3) direct sales from blogs and 4) ad revenues for blogs that generate sufficient traffic.

6.  39% OF COMPANIES IN 2011 ARE USING BLOGS FOR MARKETING AND THE PERCENTAGE IS GROWING:  Trends show blogs are being used with increased frequency by companies and are here to stay as a marketing tool.  When trends like the one below occurs, the question transitions from “does your company have a blog” to “is your company doing all it can to maximize the business possible from a blog?”

7.  36% INDICATE A BLOG IMPROVES CUSTOMER PERCEPTIONS:  People like to do business with people they know.  Blogs give businesses a human voice.  Maybe that’s why one of out every three companies notices a blog image perceptions with their customers.

8.  #1 SOCIAL CHANNEL FOR GAINING TRUST:  eMarketer says blogs are the most trusted source of information in social media.  They also point out, if is a company blog, the level of trust is greatly improved if the writer’s name is featured as opposed to the company name.

9.  BLOG CONTENT CAN BE RE-PURPOSED:  Blogs take time to write but the same information can be used to reach different audiences.  For example, a blog can also be used as an email because the former creates outreach while the latter speaks to current prospect.  The investments in time can do double duty.

For all of these points, the numbers would be 0 if it weren’t for blogs so all percentages represent incremental gains.

The sources for this post include: comScore,eMarketer, Heidi Cohen, Hubspot, Nielsen, Penn Olson, SEOMoz and WebTrends with my thanks for their smart thinking.

Does this help prove to you how blogs drive ROI?

Most people consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a scientific and process-proven way to raise search rank and drive traffic to a website, like the chart on the right conveys.

To many, the process involves finding the right keywords.  Many assume the right keywords not only raise search rank but increase business.  The assumption is people then go to a website, take the action intended and sales increase.

This is a BIG assumption.  There are around 200,000,000 websites on the internet.

Simple as it seems, the way to get people to a website and take the action you want is to consistently deliver good, focused content.  Yes, it should include the right keywords and key-phrases but content is the real key.  Is there science and process-proven principles behind this statement?  Yes.

Here are 8 reasons content is king for SEO.

1. LINKS: The #1 measurment search engines use to determine search rank isn’t keywords, its links; that is, the number of websites that follow your website.  After that, the search engines measure how many links there are to the websites that link to yours. This may sound complicated.  It’s not really. It means if you consistently put out good content, people are drawn to your website and your search rank increases.
2. AUTHORITY: Websites with a strong network of links have ”authority.”  When search engines determine you have “authority,” this is what boosts search rank.  “Authority” is substantiated with good content, not just keywords.
3. KEY-PHRASES: Actually, most of us don’t search using words in the first place; we use phrases.  You probably do too.  It’s much easier to secure a high rank from a key-phrase than a keyword because there is less competition.  When you have good content, key-phrases can be written more naturally and strategically.
4. UPDATES: Search engines place a high value on how often you update the content on your website.  They place less value if you just update the same keywords.
5. BLOGS: Most SEO experts extol the practice of having a blog on the homepage of a website.  A blog lets the search engines know a website is active and dynamic.  It’s a signal to the search engines that says “hey, there is something going on here – take a look.”  And, in fact, they do.  A blog is also an example of how social media tools helps SEO.
6. META-TAGS:  Meta-tags are keywords placed on your dashboard of website – in other words, behind the scene.  While this tactic was somewhat effective in previous years, it has steadily become less and less effective.  Many believe it has little more than marginal, if any, value now.  This shows that as search evolves the emphasis is on content is increasing.
7. LONG TAIL: There are generally a small number of words that are used most frequently in search for a particular website. This is called the “short tail.” But there are also a large numbers of words that are used less frequency – the “long tail.”  Both areas are worth pursuing.  If you are producing good content, you can incorporate more keywords from the “short tail” and “long tail” and reap the benefits of both.
8. SOMETHING WORTH DOING IS WORTH DOING WELL:  SEO has great value for any business that wants a strong online presence.  Keywords are important to search but sometimes are misread to suggest there is a easy solution or SEO is a game.  For anything worth pursuing, there usually are no shortcuts.  It’s just worth doing right in the first place, including search engine optimization.

What drives your SEO strategy?

Last year, Deloitte reported on how Americans find deals during the holiday season. They said:

• 40% turn to print
• 29% look at flyers
• 27% check out websites focused on holiday deals
• 24% go to retailers’ websites

Although they did point out a number of retailers’ website had Facebook and Twitter pages, Deloitte didn’t mention social media.  The number weren’t large enough to merit a statistical reference.

This year, here are 5 statistics on Black Friday that might change their mind. There were:

1. 145,000,000 Black Friday deals listed on Facebook
2. 59,300,000 blog posts written about Black Friday
3. 43,900,00 videos about Black Friday posted on YouTube
4. 8,670,000 tweets about Black Friday deals on Twitter
5. 3,120,000 people posted Black Friday questions on LinkedIn groups

Source: Google

These are the absolute numbers and it’s just the beginning of holiday shopping season. They do not include the number of passalongs, shares, e-mails to a friend, Likes and Re-tweets that most likely accompany each listing making these numbers much bigger.

Here are two graphs from Google Trends.  They show how search for Black Friday information and social media has rapidly accelerated.  But social media has increased at an even faster rate.  In fact, interest in social media is almost double what it was last year at this time (highlighted by the two Christmas stars).  Note the little spike on the Social Media Graph around Black Friday.

• 90% of all purchase decisions begin online
• 75% of consumers shop online before they buy offline
• 85% are looking for an independent review
• 78% of people trust the recommendations of other people
• They have an average of 130 friends online
• 14% of people trust advertising

Source: comScore, eMarketer, Nielsen

Do you think someone should tell the people at Deloitte?