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Is SEO worth it?

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WendyS

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Mar 2, 2010
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Somerset
Hi

We had a new website built in November and I am really pleased with the results. Do you think it's worth getting this optimised too? Or would it be better to put this budget to other online advertising?

We are using Google Adwords with a good conversion rate and I am pleased with the results. Can anyone recommend any other site where we can pitch our wares similar to this?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
Hi Wendy.

Yes SEO is well worth it.
Think about it this way. Yes you getting good conversions, but you are still paying for the trafffic and it's a known fact that google ads are only clicked 20% of the time, so you are missing out on 80% of traffic from the natural results.
Hiring a good SEO company who will build your link popularity so you get higher results in the natural listings will be better for your pocket in the long run too.
An adwords campaign should really be secondary to the natural results on Google and should only be used for the search terms you don't appear for.

Cheers.
Wayne.
 
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It depends, when establishing a new site, adwords is very useful, so part of the spend could go well that way.

Being written about by Press is the best way, to promote a site, good public relations campaigns are the most effective way.

Building the brand and its recognition is another activity, that helps promote a site and up the rankings.

SEO is something to do ongoing, rather that a quick blitz here and there, and it is best to budget for that as an ongoing element of the site. A lot of people think a web site is like a house or a car, but the analogy is wrong a web site is far more dynamic, and so if you want to maintain position and build position it does take persistent work, and you will be looking at conversion in have with improving or maintaining search engine result positions.
 
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Absolutely correct.

With a large ecommerce site the SEO is ongoing as each page created has to have a different title that reflects that page and enough fresh content on there to keep it out of the supplemental index or being flagged for dupe content.
Yes the Basic SEO still works for some niches, however gaining link popularity coupled with fresh new content is the way forward.

Bek.
 
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Depending on your budget for SEO, it may make more sense to expand your adwords campaign first. SEO takes time where as PPC will bring quicker results.
 
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As suggested SEO is great for long terms results but consider that you could get more immediate results by working on improving your conversions and lowering your adwords costs.

Simple example. Changing to black text on white and increasing the font size will generate more business. Other basic changes will make the site more usable and focused on the visitor's need and will lead nasturally to better ranking.
 
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Just to echo fisiscx, SEO is very much a long-term play, and one of a number of strategies.

While certainly worth considering, please don;t expect it to provide a panacea for a more comprehensive marketing strategy, not least in conjunction with PPC and local media targeting.

Yes, SEO can bring benefits, but it is one of many strategies and best used in a co-ordinated way.
 
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I would say Seo is good to have but do not get too optimistic about it like i have in these last year

I finally made the first page of Google for the second most competative keyword in my industry and although now i am experiencing around 20% extra traffic i often think that maybe the Good few grand i threw at this could have gone into a better marketing strategy like adwords where if done right my ROI would have been instant rather than long term investment from Seo.

Now i am on page 1 i could theoretically stop adwords as Seo is giving me free organic leads FOR NOW... who knows what happens next week when my competitor gets better serps than me.

You say you get a good conversion from Adwords then i would increase your spend on that so as you get more leads and more money, then set some of that money aside to help with your organic rankings which will help grow your business more effeciently long term

In a nutshell Seo is great whilst at the top no good anywhere other than first page, Adwords will give you your front page
 
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Gonna disagree with quite a few if the product is not in the ultra competative area the SEO results can be very fast if you know what you are doing.

Started a site on friday to sell calor gas in an area of Kent .Its now N01 on Yahoo and taking orders.

Earl
 
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fisicx said:
As suggested SEO is great for long terms results but consider that you could get more immediate results by working on improving your conversions and lowering your adwords costs.
Click to expand...

I agree. Start by going for the easy gains.

However, if you have spare money in your business that can't be spent on marketing that'll produce a fast ROI, SEO is well worth considering.

Steve
 
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WendyS said:
Hi

We had a new website built in November and I am really pleased with the results. Do you think it's worth getting this optimised too? Or would it be better to put this budget to other online advertising?

We are using Google Adwords with a good conversion rate and I am pleased with the results. Can anyone recommend any other site where we can pitch our wares similar to this?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Click to expand...


Definately worth it but it takes time , but far better to have natural listing than pay out forever until your to old to pay the bill, and then your cast asside like an old shoe .
 
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This depends on your market sector - if it's highly competitive it's likely to take an awful lot longer to get to a meaningful position and a lot of funding too. That said, if it's that competitive, the PPC will also be costly unless you find niche segments to target.

We've relied mainly on other marketing (on and offline) over the last year, we crept up to page 1 in October and the effect has far outweighed any other move we've made - our hits from new users have more than doubled. In retrospect we'd have been better placed to have concentrated our budget more on SEO at the beginning, all easy to say in retrospect.

FireFleur said:
Being written about by Press is the best way, to promote a site, good public relations campaigns are the most effective way.
.
Click to expand...
We've had appearances on GMTV, full page features in the women's glossies and not one has had the impact that first page google has brought. If you're selling on t'internet, the best place to be and to advertise is there, on the internet, right where your customers are searching. PR is good for brand building but, all things considered, it's much more difficult to get this to translate into increased sales.


Silky
 
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FireFleur said:
Being written about by Press is the best way, to promote a site, good public relations campaigns are the most effective way.
Click to expand...

Not in my experience yesterdays news is old news ,you can get a massive spike but it does not last more than a day or so.

You need to be high on the engines every day.Lings been on TV and nearly every national newspaper in the country but only short term peaks.

Earl
 
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hello every body in my opinion seo is better then adword because adword not gives you long time ranking in google and in case of seo gives you great long time benefits its my gruntee because i am also try adword but i am not satisfied thanks
 
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sirearl said:
Not so sure on that Brian.newspapers are not relevant links in general and do they leave a link up to sites permanently.?

Not in my experience.

Earl
Click to expand...

Not all press will link, but those who do are usually pretty authoritative - good clean link profiles.
 
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WendyS said:
Hi

We had a new website built in November and I am really pleased with the results. Do you think it's worth getting this optimised too? Or would it be better to put this budget to other online advertising?

We are using Google Adwords with a good conversion rate and I am pleased with the results. Can anyone recommend any other site where we can pitch our wares similar to this?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Click to expand...

I can help for SEO around $30 (1000 directory submission and other things)
 
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fisicx said:
That will be $30 down the drain then.
Click to expand...

ok...i myself not sure how good is the SEO because there is no standard measure of how many traffic will it bring to you. But what i do know is submission to directories, social bookmarking, some article writing
 
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Like many have said here it is very important that you have a overall marketing strategy that will deliver for your business. SEO is just one part of that strategy which should include PPC social media and other marketing routes that suit your business

However, in my experience nothing returns value like quality SEO when measured on a ROI basis against all other marketing routes. Even prime time TV exposure only gives you a quick peak that fades very quickly

That may not be the same for all industries though as I focus on niche areas. Recent example site built and launched March 2009 only marketing spend in £ was site build and a little SEO total spend less than a £1k. The site will drive well into 6 figures this year.

As I said may not be for every industry but for the majority SEO is going to payback time and investment over and over again.
 
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adventurelife said:
Like many have said here it is very important that you have a overall marketing strategy that will deliver for your business. SEO is just one part of that strategy which should include PPC social media and other marketing routes that suit your business

However, in my experience nothing returns value like quality SEO when measured on a ROI basis against all other marketing routes. Even prime time TV exposure only gives you a quick peak that fades very quickly

That may not be the same for all industries though as I focus on niche areas. Recent example site built and launched March 2009 only marketing spend in £ was site build and a little SEO total spend less than a £1k. The site will drive well into 6 figures this year.

As I said may not be for every industry but for the majority SEO is going to payback time and investment over and over again.
Click to expand...

So true about different industries. Some clients come to me and ask how much SEO for £1000? My response is always for them to pay for the research phase first then I'll let them know because different sectors require differing amounts of effort and resources to achieve similar results/positions.
 
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adventurelife said:
Like many have said here it is very important that you have a overall marketing strategy that will deliver for your business. SEO is just one part of that strategy which should include PPC social media and other marketing routes that suit your business

However, in my experience nothing returns value like quality SEO when measured on a ROI basis against all other marketing routes. Even prime time TV exposure only gives you a quick peak that fades very quickly

That may not be the same for all industries though as I focus on niche areas. Recent example site built and launched March 2009 only marketing spend in £ was site build and a little SEO total spend less than a £1k. The site will drive well into 6 figures this year.

As I said may not be for every industry but for the majority SEO is going to payback time and investment over and over again.
Click to expand...

Good SEO without a good products/service to offer is also useless. I made my site on the 1st Google search but the item is not much in demand so i guess i made very little sales out of it
 
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If you have knowledge in SEO you can actually optimized your site on your own. On that way your not going to hire an SEO person just to do the the tactics for you. We'll for me that is what i'm trying to study as of the moment. Because on that way you can save money from different ads and you can manage your website as well.
 
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jadesummer9 said:
If you have knowledge in SEO you can actually optimized your site on your own. On that way your not going to hire an SEO person just to do the the tactics for you. We'll for me that is what i'm trying to study as of the moment. Because on that way you can save money from different ads and you can manage your website as well.
Click to expand...

You mean you are going to save money after a good few years study.

so how much do you think you might earn working rather than studying SEO.?:)

Earl
 
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If you join adwords you can monitor the traffic to your site and see where the customers come from,
google ppc
google organic
yahoo organic etc

With SEO it's a two handed sword you need to do the internal work on your site and at the same time work on the externals like links etc

I would recommend a small PPC start up with low PPC rate (under £0.25 and low daily maximum say £10 and see how it effects sales, and at the same time try and boost SEO yourself

There are many good SEO and PPC experts out there, but many basic crooks and some in the middle, as a basic rule if someone contacts you they are probably crap and need the work, whilst the good ones will be recommended by others on forums like this.Never sign a fixed length contract untill they have proved themselves and even then think why do they need it, if you are happy each month why would you change

Whatever you do keep tracking your results and dont be afraid of trying new keywords and keyword phrases, just imagine what your customers are puttin in the search engine to find you, and are they local customers or country wide
 
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sirearl said:
Gonna disagree with quite a few if the product is not in the ultra competative area the SEO results can be very fast if you know what you are doing.

Started a site on friday to sell calor gas in an area of Kent .Its now N01 on Yahoo and taking orders.

Earl
Click to expand...

Exactly, that's when I came up with the idea for my logo, I have experienced the same thing myself.

To echo the others posts, in more a competitve keyword world, results will only be proven with ongoing off-site SEO work, as well as tweaking some things on-site to maximise conversions from first time visitors.
 
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