Does SEO still work?

Dear Friends and Partners,

Today Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services are offered by multiple entrepreneurs from all over the world and it is purchased by many businesses.

Usually, there are 3 types of case scenarios for you (entrepreneurs):

1) You keep making your small monthly payments and after 6 months you don’t see any major feedback in traffic and leads.

2) Your profit can barely cover the expenses during the first year but then it works well.

3) You are having very decent return on investment and it increases each month.

The main question is: WHY DOES IT WORK FOR MANY BUSINESSES BUT DOES NOT WORK FOR MINE?

I have been doing SEO for over 4 years with my team at ComradeWeb.com and we have seen over 100 businesses succeed and fail during this period.

Here is a short list of items to be checked before launching SEO campaign starting with the most important one:

1.      My website is ready to sell my product. Many sites have decent amount of visitors but they are not converting into clients due to the following reasons:

a.       Your websites’ graphic design is generic/outdated/boring/based on a popular template. Most people tend to like unique and modern websites with non-template unique designs.

b.      You don’t have any “Call to action” buttons. More and more people are getting used to “Daily Deals” sites like Groupon.com. This means that it’s getting harder to catch them right now if a good-quality product is the only thing you can offer. It’s better to give them something special or at least make them think they are getting a great deal. You might use monthly special offers that rotate every month, lists of items on sale, free consultation, gift certificate in exchange for their facebook “like” or email subscription, etc.

c.       You don’t have enough content and “proof of quality” on your site. Testimonials from clients, portfolio examples, list of current projects, ratings, blog, product/service description. “How It Works” section, Facebook/Twitter page links with many active fans. All of it effects the conversion rate of your site and that is why it makes perfect sense to do it all as soon as possible.

d.      Other reasons: website cannot process credit cards, prices are too high, content has been written with mistakes, website displays pop-up windows, website displays bugs if opened in different browsers, has a lot of Flashing elements etc.

2.      Many people search for my product / service online and it’s affordable for me to be on top on the major search engines.

Example:

a)      We are currently promoting a company (gpstechnologies.net) selling GPS units online and specializing on vehicle and teen tracking devices. The US is a relatively big market for these products where thousands of people search for them online every day. That is why a small investment in SEO turned into a major performance in conjunction with affordable prices, attractive website and helpful customer service. For the past 4 months of SEO we have tripled the traffic from all search engines by targeting very specific groups of keywords.

b)      Very small “mom and pap’s shops” operating in very limited areas can spend thousands of dollars on organic SEO and get no major feedback because there are only a few people who are searching for their products/services online. It might be way better for them to conduct the basics of SEO and focus on social media promotion, Google Places and even Pay Per Click campaigns.

Conclusion:

SEO works great for all online stores selling nationwide with optimized website designs. SEO might work well for local businesses only if there is a certain amount of targeted searches performed every month. You need to do a research to figure out whether it will work for you or not…or just poke me – I’ll help with research. Otherwise, you only need a basic SEO and Google Places with other online marketing techniques such as: Social Media Promotion, E-Mail marketing or even Pay Per Click.

Will talk about it next time...

Stan Bogdashin