March 29, 2009
Your Primary Search Engine Optimization Objective
I'm about to let you into a secret. Well, actually, it isn't a secret at all, it's common sense, but so few people seem to be capitalizing upon it, that it may as well be a secret!
When you pay attention to what the so called experts tell you, you may be forgiven for thinking that the most important SEO objctives are to achieve the highest ranking. WRONG!
When you consider a really competitive niche market, the true price of achieving a top ten position in the search engines is probably going to be far higher than the potential profit available to the small business.
Yes, the internet does level the playing field to some extent. However, the guy with the biggest purse still has a huge advantage.. especially if he has the funds to play for the long term.
So, if achieving ranking isn't your primary objective, what is?
At the risk of staing the blindingly obvious: What you should be aiming for is the highest quality traffic for the minimum amount of investment.
In any business the primary focus must be on increasing revenue. Having been in the bricks and mortar retail industry, I can tell you that it doesn't matter how many people walk through your shop door. What matters is that the people who enter your shop, spend money!
So, from this moment forward, when looking to get organic traffic from the search engines, I want you to ask a simple question: "Is the potential return (in revenue) going to be worth the time, effort and expense of getting a high rank for this keyword phrase?"
Yes, I want you to consider each keyword phrase individually.. you may be in for an excellent surprise.. some phrases may generate much more profit than others. When you measure profit potential at keyword phrase level, you get to follow the money rather than the rank.
Are you following Rank or Profit? Please comment below..
Comments on Your Primary Search Engine Optimization Objective »
Great, great, great point!
I am a Realtor in one of the most competitive markets in North America and am lucky that most of my competitors have yet to actually do something about the fact that almost 90% of consumers begin their property or Realtor search online.
Once they do they will be likely start spending the thousands of dollars they once spent on print on SEO. Problem is they were never measuring their ROI on print so why would they measure their ROI on SEO?
It will be interesting to watch the game change in the coming years as print finally takes its last breath. These Realtors are currently spending up to $10K a month on print so it would be nothing to them to spend half that online.
From day one I have never spent more than $500 a month and never printed a thing…but now I am off topic.
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Kye,
Even if your competitors do get it, I suspect they'll have a lot of catching up to do.
John
Good points you made John.
A few years ago I remember reading a study about how to target your business to the needs of a search engine's primary advertising market. Can't remember where I saw it, so if you remember it please let us know:)
At the time it was AOL, primarily $20,000-$45,000 income; children under 16 at home, etc. The study at the time also included MSN, Yahoo, Altavista and Google.
If I find the link (it's online so there's an old link somewhere) I'll let you know. But why it was interesting was that it showed Google as being the 'whoever, whatever' for wasting marketing dollars and using Yahoo or AOL if you were targeting families.
Sorry this is so long, but thought I'd share it.
Georjina’s last blog post..Fake Working or Networking?
Hi Georjina,
Yes, it's easy to forget about the "secondary" search engines and concentrate on just Google. The trick is to do as much analysis as possible so that you know where your target market hangs out and that includes knowing where they search as well as what.
Unsuprisingly, more and more people are searching for video content.
John
Great content John.