Filed under: Search Marketing
I regularly read SEOmoz (am also a subscriber to the Pro tools, which are nice) and happened to have come across a really eye-opening post today. Define competitors a step by step process – This is one of those marketing aspects to SEO I really like! I have oftentimes gone to those stakeholders who own various product pages or websites and asked them who their indirect competitors are and their direct competitors. This should not be overlooked at all and anyone in marketing today (yes, especially those involved in “print” or offline marketing) should really understand this and apply these basic tactics.
The indirect competitors are those that you might not normally think of when someone asks who your competition is. These are found when going to Google and typing in some of your most important keywords (non-branded of course) and see who comes up in those first few rankings. These are as important to note as your direct competitors are.
Get to know all your competition and optimize, link build and focus on displacing them. Good Luck and enjoy the good read!
May 14, 2010
This topic might not be a revelation to some of you, but to others “conversion optimization” is often overlooked in our industry. One of the more frustrating things I encounter are those either deep in the SEO industry, (I’m talking about those that have been around for years), or those who supposedly know marketing, and haven’t thought beyond the keyword rank. You know, those who report only on their highly ranked keywords and show not much more than this. Yes, anyone can rank really well in the SERPs on any keyword, it’s the “what occurs after that they don’t often think of.
Most think, “well that’s the developer’s problem” or “I just get the visitors to click through, it’s now up to the product owner to do the rest”. Well, guess what folks, you the SEO, play a very valuable role here too. Your job is to help the visitor find, and get to what they need, in as few clicks as possible.
- Think like a visitor – try real hard, I promise you it does work. How would you feel about this page or site?
- How would that same visitor rate your navigational interface? A fairly high bounce rate plays a huge role in the poor navigability. Think in terms of 3 clicks or less, and not more if possible.
- How busy is your landing page? Is it so busy you get lost or real confused?
- Look to Amazon.com as the leader in conversion optimization for e commerce.
- Have you checked out your competitor’s pages? What is they do right? Do some of those ideas seem clear and simple or something you might be able to apply?
- Make it as simple as possible for your visitors to find and buy what they need right away! Do not make them guess where a product might live.
- Start with your Meta Descriptions tags (which should all be unique on each page). Do they really describe your pages and help your visitors to convert to the right pages? If so, you will find yourself with great targeted visitors – the quality visitors how will buy.
- Another no-brainer is to look at those keywords your visitors are typing in your internal site search. Are they trying to find things you have no content for?
- Really know your audience. Often they aren’t thinking the way you, an internal corporate marketer who uses company acronyms and lingo, they are possibly using different keywords or phrases you might not be.
- Remember, like SEO, this too is an ongoing process.
You want to know the secret to real ROI in SEO? I can tell you conversion optimization is a real ingredient here. Give it a go – crack on and share your ideas!
March 28, 2010
As I write this post, I think about the many times I have had meetings internally about what a conversion rate is. However, I did not think to tell them actually how to calculate this.
Your conversion rate is nothing more than the sum of the thousands of efforts and paths that prospects take through your site. Please Beware of averages. There is no such thing as an average person. That is why your average conversion rate is a rough indicator but virtually worthless as a way to focus your conversion optimization. Also note there is no “industry standard” either. I probably get this question at least two times a week. You can look at Hitwise, Compete and Comscore for good information. But realize if you are looking at a specific sub-directory, i.e. www.mycompany.com/store, you won’t likely see your e commerce area, but rather your actual www.mycompany.com domain being compared to your competition – not a good comparison at all.
Looking at your conversion rate is certainly not the first thing one should do to evaluate the immediate success of your brand new campaign, but eventually you should take a good look at really understanding your conversion rate – by reading the what is your true conversion rate written by Bryan Eisenberg, well known for good analytics learnings.
Next time your asked “what’s our conversion rate?”, be sure your actually tracking conversions. I had the unfortunate task to work with an agency last year, who is no longer with us and has since been bought out, and when I asked them about our conversion tags, they replied with “we don’t use any, what do you mean?” That’s a red flag right there my friends! In learning more and more about PPC, my first rule for any PPC campaign, especially ecommerce, don’t ever launch the campaign until and unless your conversion tags are in place and have been completely tested. If you chose not to apply or wait to include the tags, your wasting your daily/monthly spend on “visits” – you will never know how many of those visits ever converted to a sale, which I hope, is why you activated a PPC campaign in the first place.
Peace out – enjoy and convert!
September 19, 2009
I want to forewarn anyone reading this, this is strictly my opinion and I feel the need to share it. I attended just the first day of SES NYC, this is my third time attending this conference now. I have to say that really not much has changed and I was pretty disappointed. I do realize it’s a very heavy prospecting and networking event. If you have never been, buckle up! This is really not a place where the advanced SEO person can go in sit in on a session and walk away feeling like they learned something new. (more…)
March 25, 2009
My primary role as SEO Manager involves overseeing numerous sub domains, corporate sites and international sites. I have the fortunate opportunity to “manage” or assist in managing an SEM campaign for one of our sites.
It certainly helps to have a basic comprehension of what PPC is, there are a lot of similarities with SEO. Chosing keywords and deciding that landing pages they land on certainly a critical and important aspect of any PPC campaign.
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July 23, 2008
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