Some of you may have heard the saying: Are you the pig or the chicken. When it comes to eating a breakfast of egg & bacon, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. When it comes to your online search campaigns, are you the chicken or the pig? Should the type of business you are in help decide whether in fact you should be a chicken or a pig?
We all agree ROI is important. We all agree that any marketing or business activity should have some form of ROI. How do we best manage the link between SEO and ROI, especially when there are very different players, angles, business models all trying to rank for the same keywords?
Consider the graph below and how the various players might interact or see SEO in their business model.
The Large Consumer Bank would have a large dependency on their website for operations i.e. Internet banking, applications and so on, however when it comes to sales they would have multiple, multiple sales channels from account managers to television spots to in branch activities, all driving people to convert either online or offline. Operations would be driven by complex systems integrating to the front end behind the scenes. May take a couple of touch points to convert a customer. While the need for SEO might be considered small, being found online for all the campaigns, slogans is not. SEO is integral, most of them just realize how integral.
Great video on traditional and online advertising written to Bye Bye Miss American pie. If you are in marketing or advertising and pitch against some of the larger more traditional agencies you may relate to this.
So where is the spend going? Interestingly enough, into search. Per eMarketer, search is predicted to grow by 15% in 2009 and 30% by 2010. This is against display ads 18% , Classifieds -6%, Sponsorships -8%, Email marketing 8.5% and video 113% all by 2010. In this data, Search makes up 45% of online spend in 2008 and will move to 48% in 2009 and 48,7% by 2010.
This can only be good news to Google and those providing paid search and search engine optimisation (SEO)services. Video ad spending while good news, comes in varying forms and channels, from Youtube through to display video. From the data this breakdown was not available but no doubt there would be some overlap.
While this data is based on the United States and is based on various assumptions, we believe Australia will follow a similar trend. In fact the update and increase in growth in search may even be more dramatic, given the speed on adoption and innovation rates with Australian online marketers. Within the last 18 months it is clear that corporate Australia recognizes the opportunity from search and is prepared to invest accordingly.
Social media as a channel to market is still clearly emerging in Australia. Most corporates know they need to be involved and many are finding the best way to execute challenging. Search is also clearly integrated into social strategies.
So what does this mean? Some core considerations for 2009 are: Read more…
I don’t usually review tools, but Google have just released their new search based keywords tool. Now you can make sure you don’t miss any of those additional keywords you maybe meant to include, but didn’t buy.
The cynics might think extra keywords = extra revenue, if everyone has the keywords = more competitive bidding = higher cost per click and more profits to the big G. Google also gives the disclaimer that using the tool will not necessarily improve your campaign performance. But this tool is a help to those consulting and doing keyword research. At a glance you can see the keywords, suggested bids, search volumes and other information, as well as being able to sort by field for the website or an entire category.
You can also create a search on the term and view the search term with Google Insights to get additional information.
Putting the new search based keyword tool to the test:
Using Belldirect, a newish share trading entrant to Australia with a clean website. Share trading and online share trading is the key search term for sites like these.
The tool produced a list of 190 keywords with search volumes of 25 to 23,000 for the term “share trading” and split these between those relevant to your site and then keywords related to your search term. First thing to notice is the Google AdWords tool gives the search volume on “phrase match” at 27,100 for October and 18,100 average and 130 closely related and 70 broadly related terms. That’s a difference in excess of 20% both ways on search volumes. The outcome was similar for other popular sites and keywords. Google does however say the data is updated every couple of weeks, so no doubt this is due to timing differences in the cut off of the data and also to keep webmasters guessing as to search volumes.
But, the real value is this tool telling what keywords your Adwords campaigns is missing, so no opportunities are missed to appear for more keywords or pay Google more cash.
Questions for Google
Thanks Google for an extremely useful tool, but please tell us which search volume number more accurate
You get limited keyword ideas if your Adwords billing address is outside of the US or UK. Does this Read more…
It had to happen, somebody had to link SEO and the global financial meltdown together so thought it should rather be me than someone more qualified to comment. Does it help that I was, actually still am an accountant?
So the United States and certain other countries will be bailing out some of the larger financial institutions by either buying up distressed assets or by lending more money into the banking system as some of the banks are too scared to lend to each other and the system is bunging up I think the highly leveraged finance deals and credit default swaps (CDS) still have to come out somewhere, just not sure where. You can read more great articles on CDS’s by those who do this for a living at Bankaholic on what is going on and where it is happening.
So while the US, UK and everywhere else appears to be melting, from my dealings with business in Australia both large and small, I feel there is a sense of we should be cutting costs, managing budgets, things are bad but nothing drastic from a business perspective has changed in certain sectors so its a tad confusing. I have also noticed a higher interest in SEO and discussions around how to reduce paid advertising.
If I were a Marketing Manager
I would want sure fire ways to bring customers seeking my product or service to my website to convert them or introduce them to my brand at the lowest possible cost.
I would spend some time ensuring my paid search campaigns were highly focused, conversion based and delivering at a set cost per customer acquisition or transaction. Why mess with a formula that works and that could potentially deliver even a higher ROI as more folks potentially cut their marketing budgets Read more…
Bruce Clay SEO training in Sydney in April 2009. Training will be at a luxury venue in Sydney. Consistently rated #1 by TopSEO's. Training now fully booked. More information at Bruce Clay.com.au/Training
