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Explain the obsession with SEO

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Rob S

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Feb 3, 2008
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Oxfordshire
Sorry - I hope I don't offend anyone, but I don't get the obsession with SEO

Whilst it is important for some consumer companies to be at the top of Google, eg play.com, I don't think that it is important for everyone as there are other ways of directing customers to your website and we all know that quality is better than quanitity.

To be honest, like the Bing advert, sometimes searching online is becoming a needle in the haystack with a load of comparison website coming on the front page.

This guy sums it up for me.

http://boagworld.com/marketing/i-dont-get-seo

Comments?
 
Rob S said:
Sorry - I hope I don't offend anyone, but I don't get the obsession with SEO

Whilst it is important for some consumer companies to be at the top of Google, eg play.com, I don't think that it is important for everyone as there are other ways of directing customers to your website and we all know that quality is better than quanitity.

To be honest, like the Bing advert, sometimes searching online is becoming a needle in the haystack with a load of comparison website coming on the front page.

This guy sums it up for me.

http://boagworld.com/marketing/i-dont-get-seo

Comments?
Click to expand...


yet another article written by someone who doesn't get what modern SEO is about. Modern SEO is about using WEB2.0, it is all encompassing.

While it is all fine and dandy telling people that a personal recommendation is far better than anything else, tell that to the people who are making huge sums of money from top rankings in Google :)
 
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You're right in one respect: SEO isn't an essential marketing method and you can start up a very successful online business without the use of SEO.

However, SEO is still one of the best marketing methods available out there. You're presenting yourself to prospects who are actively looking to buy what you're selling. You aren't trying to reach out to them. They're reaching out to find you. That usually results in a lot of perfectly targeted visitors with a very high sales conversion rate.

One point you've made:

there are other ways of directing customers to your website and we all know that quality is better than quanitity.
Click to expand...

Many visitors from search engines are actually very high quality. They're the type of visitors you should be striving for as they are actively looking for a shop or business like yours. On top of that, there's usually a lot of searches, so you get both quantity and quality.
 
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OldWelshGuy said:
, tell that to the people who are making huge sums of money from top rankings in Google :)
Click to expand...

But not everyone is out to make huge sums of money. Especially the smaller traders who feel they need to be on the web as an online brochure, but don't generally want a lot of unsolicited enquiries. Not everyone wants to grow their business into a huge organisation.
 
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OldWelshGuy said:
yet another article written by someone who doesn't get what modern SEO is about. Modern SEO is about using WEB2.0, it is all encompassing.

While it is all fine and dandy telling people that a personal recommendation is far better than anything else, tell that to the people who are making huge sums of money from top rankings in Google :)
Click to expand...

100% of all the people I work believe SEO is the most important thing for a web based business
 
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Rob S said:
But not everyone is out to make huge sums of money. Especially the smaller traders who feel they need to be on the web as an online brochure, but don't generally want a lot of unsolicited enquiries. Not everyone wants to grow their business into a huge organisation.
Click to expand...

So basically you are kicking back at the cold callers?

d
 
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Rob S said:
Sorry - I hope I don't offend anyone, but I don't get the obsession with SEO
Click to expand...

I think there's an "SEO fetish" on this forum.

To a larger degree, it's a "traffic fetish", with many threads started each day about traffic, compared to one or two a week (or fewer) about conversion or visitor value.

But, the main part of the "traffic fetish" is the SEO fetish.

While I regard SEO as a very good form of marketing, I think it's a siren call to a lot of startups and, for those that succeed with SEO, it can become a monkey trap.

So, while I understand the obsession with SEO, I think it's an unhealthy obsession and, in most cases, damaging.*

Steve

PS I've been meaning to write about this at length. I'll get round to it someday. (Don't hold your breath.)

* When SEO is treated like "just another form of marketing" - i.e. without the obsession and without placing it at the centre of the business - it can work very well.
 
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RedEvo said:
So basically you are kicking back at the cold callers?

d
Click to expand...

OK - an example - customer of mine - a sole trader - does specialised automotive repairs. Did him a website - got him onto the first page of google as per his instructions (as he was told by F&F that is what his website should be doing), now he complains as he is answering calls all day from people who have found him on google and not getting any work done.
 
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Rob S said:
OK - an example - customer of mine - a sole trader - does specialised automotive repairs. Did him a website - got him onto the first page of google as per his instructions (as he was told by F&F that is what his website should be doing), now he complains as he is answering calls all day from people who have found him on google and not getting any work done.
Click to expand...

He's complaining at having too many customers? :eek: :D

It never ceases to amaze how many people see an opportunity as a problem...! :D
 
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WeblinkPlus said:
He's complaining at having too many customers? :eek: :D

It never ceases to amaze how many people see an opportunity as a problem...! :D
Click to expand...

But that is the problem - not everyone wants to expand. If this guy takes on more customers, he will have to take on staff and he doesn't want that hassle.
 
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WeblinkPlus said:
He's complaining at having too many customers? :eek: :D

It never ceases to amaze how many people see an opportunity as a problem...! :D
Click to expand...
I know its totally crazy!


Rob S said:
But that is the problem - not everyone wants to expand. If this guy takes on more customers, he will have to take on staff and he doesn't want that hassle.
Click to expand...
Do a deal with another company and outsource the extra work out for a % fee!!!
 
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Rob S said:
But that is the problem - not everyone wants to expand. If this guy takes on more customers, he will have to take on staff and he doesn't want that hassle.
Click to expand...

With Respect Rob, you are talking about the exception to the rule.

here is a novel ideal, de-optimise his website, or better still optimise it for his most profitable type of work only, and then use the copy to off sell the less profitable types of work. That way he will only be answering the phone to people who are going to make him the most money. (oh and buy an answerphone)

oh but hang on, that would be optimising for profit (what SEO is all about) and SEO is evil :D
 
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Rob S said:
OK - an example - customer of mine - a sole trader - does specialised automotive repairs. Did him a website - got him onto the first page of google as per his instructions (as he was told by F&F that is what his website should be doing), now he complains as he is answering calls all day from people who have found him on google and not getting any work done.
Click to expand...

Nice problem to have! he now has a choice - he could employ someone to field the calls for him (perhpas go online & Google 'virtual office':D) allowing him to get on with what he does best, or decide that he has enough business without the website and take it down

SteveGibson said:
I think there's an "SEO fetish" on this forum.

To a larger degree, it's a "traffic fetish", with many threads started each day about traffic, compared to one or two a week (or fewer) about conversion or visitor value.

But, the main part of the "traffic fetish" is the SEO fetish.
Click to expand...

Fair point - but before you start doing any useful analysis on conversion or visitor analysis, or split testing etc., you need to have visitors in the first place. So gaining visitors must be one of the first elements of your web presence - using SEO is one way of doing this, PPC is another.

OldWelshGuy said:
While it is all fine and dandy telling people that a personal recommendation is far better than anything else, tell that to the people who are making huge sums of money from top rankings in Google :)
Click to expand...

Agree! Personal recommendations are, perhaps, the best.

But even harnessing all my many 'friends' on line - forum users, Facebook friends, Twitter followers etc. collectively they still don't know enough about enough to solve all my queries.

eg. If I'm looking for a good book to read on the beach on my hols, then my online 'friends' probably do know enough to help me, but if I'm looking to buy, say, 3 x 100m rolls of bubble wrap, my friends just won't know were to buy that so personal recommendation would be no good.

Jeff
 
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SteveGibson said:
To a larger degree, it's a "traffic fetish", with many threads started each day about traffic, compared to one or two a week (or fewer) about conversion or visitor value.

But, the main part of the "traffic fetish" is the SEO fetish.
Click to expand...

I don't get this obsession with conversion ;-)

Say you have a good site, you've done some good work on it, some split testing, and it's converting nicely. You find yourself in a diminishing returns situation as far as conversion goes - sure you can work to increase your conversion, but you're never going to increase it by /that much/ - there is a natural ceiling for conversion in online retail - even Amazon can't break through that ceiling.

So let's say you have your conversion (online retail again) at 5%. Where can you go with that? 6%? Maybe, with a huge amount of work.

Alternatively, you can increase your traffic by 20%. Or even by 200% - that would triple your sales. There is no conversion increase (at this point) that could possibly triple your sales. So the only way to grow significantly is by increasing traffic.
 
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OldWelshGuy said:
here is a novel ideal, de-optimise his website, or better still optimise it for his most profitable type of work only, and then use the copy to off sell the less profitable types of work. That way he will only be answering the phone to people who are going to make him the most money. (oh and buy an answerphone)
Click to expand...

Exactly. Cherry pick and off sell...
 
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sysops said:
I don't get this obsession with conversion ;-)

Say you have a good site, you've done some good work on it, some split testing, and it's converting nicely. You find yourself in a diminishing returns situation as far as conversion goes - sure you can work to increase your conversion, but you're never going to increase it by /that much/ - there is a natural ceiling for conversion in online retail - even Amazon can't break through that ceiling.

So let's say you have your conversion (online retail again) at 5%. Where can you go with that? 6%? Maybe, with a huge amount of work.

Alternatively, you can increase your traffic by 20%. Or even by 200% - that would triple your sales. There is no conversion increase (at this point) that could possibly triple your sales. So the only way to grow significantly is by increasing traffic.
Click to expand...

Equally there is a finite limit to the amount of traffic and diminishing returns on getting that last % of traffic...
 
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WeblinkPlus said:
Equally there is a finite limit to the amount of traffic and diminishing returns on getting that last % of traffic...
Click to expand...

Oh come on! As long as you aren't in an ultra-niche market, where you sell "green widgets" and nothing else, there is no comparison!

While you may be able to gain another 20-30% in sales from increasing conversion, there are very few situations where you wouldn't be able to gain ten times that by grabbing more traffic.
 
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Rob S said:
OK - an example - customer of mine - a sole trader - does specialised automotive repairs. Did him a website - got him onto the first page of google as per his instructions (as he was told by F&F that is what his website should be doing), now he complains as he is answering calls all day from people who have found him on google and not getting any work done.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with this, as a builder the world and his wife wanted a quote off me, everyone dreams of having a bigger house and wasteing my time giving them a quote, for work they are unlikely to ever be able to afford, seemed to be a common pastime.

Now doing the architectural work it's no different, everyone also likes to read about how to get a bigger house, so I got plenty of good content for a website, but it's filtering out the time wasters from the genuine enquiries. This why I like adwords as opposed to seo, it's far more targetted and if the punters p*ss me off too much, I can pause it and they leave me alone for a bit.

It'd be good work, if it wasn't for the customers!!

:)
 
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dots and spots Jeff said:
Fair point - but before you start doing any useful analysis on conversion or visitor analysis, or split testing etc., you need to have visitors in the first place. So gaining visitors must be one of the first elements of your web presence - using SEO is one way of doing this, PPC is another.
Click to expand...

The main problem with doing it with SEO is that, once you have the rankings, are you really willing to make big changes to your site?

What you tend to end up with is a site with poor or mediocre conversion that you're too scared to touch in case you lose your rankings - i.e. a monkey trap.

sysops said:
Say you have a good site, you've done some good work on it, some split testing, and it's converting nicely. You find yourself in a diminishing returns situation as far as conversion goes - sure you can work to increase your conversion, but you're never going to increase it by /that much/ - there is a natural ceiling for conversion in online retail - even Amazon can't break through that ceiling.
Click to expand...

Clearly Amazon disagree as they're still split-testing.

Yes, there's a point where the increases in conversion will be limited (BTW, one of my clients got a 35% increase from a split-test last month... from a site we've been split-testing regularly for almost 18 months), but so what?

Here's the difference between the "conversion first, traffic second" people and the "traffic first, conversion second" people: we "conversion" people still work on traffic. The traffic people rarely work on conversion.

(Not in any meaningful way.)

WeblinkPlus said:
Equally there is a finite limit to the amount of traffic
Click to expand...

And, if you've never done proper conversion work (which is usually the case if someone puts SEO first in their business), you probably can't afford to buy traffic.

Which means traffic is very limited.

(And very dependent on the hope that the ever-changing Google algorithm will never change in a way that lowers your rankings.)

Steve
 
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sysops said:
Oh come on! As long as you aren't in an ultra-niche market, where you sell "green widgets" and nothing else, there is no comparison!

While you may be able to gain another 20-30% in sales from increasing conversion, there are very few situations where you wouldn't be able to gain ten times that by grabbing more traffic.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm misunderstanding from your other thread, but if you're already at number one, how do you double your traffic? You'd have to go after long tail which have less searches so you need to do a lot more work to get an equal amount of traffic, more keywords, more pages...
 
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WeblinkPlus said:
Maybe I'm misunderstanding from your other thread, but if you're already at number one, how do you double your traffic? You'd have to go after long tail which have less searches so you need to do a lot more work to get an equal amount of traffic, more keywords, more pages...
Click to expand...

So whats the problem with that.?

What else is an SEO going to do once they have obtained a top ranking for certain keywords.?

Earl
 
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SEO is just *one* marketing strategy and it should be used as part of a group of strategies - trouble is, people think of SEO as "free traffic" and that misleads people into thinking there is something simply and easy and free they can take advantage of.
 
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I said:
SEO is just *one* marketing strategy and it should be used as part of a group of strategies - trouble is, people think of SEO as "free traffic" and that misleads people into thinking there is something simply and easy and free they can take advantage of.
Click to expand...

I agree.

SEO, as a marketing method, is very good. Nothing wrong with it at all.

It's the way people approach it that's so often the problem... and I'd agree that it's the concept of "free" that does the most to send them down the wrong path.

Steve
 
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Scott-CopyandDesign said:
You're right in one respect: SEO isn't an essential marketing method and you can start up a very successful online business without the use of SEO.

However, SEO is still one of the best marketing methods available out there. You're presenting yourself to prospects who are actively looking to buy what you're selling. You aren't trying to reach out to them. They're reaching out to find you. That usually results in a lot of perfectly targeted visitors with a very high sales conversion rate.

One point you've made:



Many visitors from search engines are actually very high quality. They're the type of visitors you should be striving for as they are actively looking for a shop or business like yours. On top of that, there's usually a lot of searches, so you get both quantity and quality.
Click to expand...

Bang on the money Scott.:)

As more than 70% of website traffic comes from search engines why would the average site owner not be obssesed with SEO.?

I can't think of a finer source of advertising than one where people come looking for your product.?

Allied to the possibility of reaching 1.5 billion potential customers.:|

Earl
 
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WeblinkPlus said:
Where did I say there was anything wrong with it? We are talking about diminishing returns. Keep up old man...:D
Click to expand...

One suspects the implication might be there in this:

"you need to do a lot more work to get an equal amount of traffic"

There is far more traffic to be obtained from longer tail than for major keywords,so the effort is well worth while.

I would guess that the major keywords bring in less than 10% of your average sites traffic.

And I ain't old ,just nicely ripened.:p

Earl
 
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sysops said:
I don't get this obsession with conversion ;-)

Say you have a good site, you've done some good work on it, some split testing, and it's converting nicely. You find yourself in a diminishing returns situation as far as conversion goes - sure you can work to increase your conversion, but you're never going to increase it by /that much/ - there is a natural ceiling for conversion in online retail - even Amazon can't break through that ceiling.

So let's say you have your conversion (online retail again) at 5%. Where can you go with that? 6%? Maybe, with a huge amount of work.

Alternatively, you can increase your traffic by 20%. Or even by 200% - that would triple your sales. There is no conversion increase (at this point) that could possibly triple your sales. So the only way to grow significantly is by increasing traffic.
Click to expand...

How about:

Increase your sales conversion rate by 5-10% and THEN increase your traffic by 20%-200%? You're going to get FAR more customers compared to increasing traffic alone.

Focusing on one or the other makes absolutely zero sense, but conversion should ideally come first.

PS: I'm always very careful about SEO because it can mean that you're putting all of your eggs in one basket. If an online business relies solely on SEO, then it will completely collapse if it loses or drops its rankings for reasons in or out of the businesses control.
 
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SteveGibson said:
No, conversion makes money. SEO (or PPC or any other form of traffic generation) merely brings people to the beginning of your sales funnel.

Steve
Click to expand...

Well if you did a questionaire on the forum.

I would eat yet another one of my hats if in the main the people who made the most money also had the most visitors to there sites.

Earl
 
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