Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is part art and part science. The science part includes:
- Selecting effective keywords that have high search traffic and reasonable competition levels
- Implementing those keywords into your site
- Testing: tweak, measure, repeat
- Developing backlinks
- Integrating social media
- Keeping abreast with all the latest changes that affect search engine rank
The art part involves some intuition and requires a deep understanding of your business and your customers. You have to think about what people are looking for when they search on the internet. Here are some questions to consider:
- What problems does your company solve?
- When people are looking for a solution to these problems, what do they type in search engines?
Ideally, search keywords should directly connect your target customer with your business, not cause random visitors to accidentally stumble upon your website.
Search Engine Marketing
In many cases and for a number of reasons, web users are not searching for the solutions you have to offer, even though they may be interested in those solutions. In this case, you can place advertisements where your potential customers are likely to see it. These places will be either particular web searches or particular websites (placements) that display ads. As with organic SEO, you have to make sure the ad connects your offering with your target market.
When embarking on a pay-per-click campaign, it is important to determine how much a click is worth to you. To do so, you need to start with the value of a new customer/sale and then work backwards. The value should be the profit you would receive from a sale. Then you multiply that by your web conversion rate and your lead-to-sale conversion rate.
For example, if a new customer is worth $1000,
and your web conversion rate is 15% (fifteen percent of web visitors fill out your form and become a lead),
and your lead to sales conversion is 10%
then a click should be worth $1000 x .15 x .1 = $15
If you can maintain these conversion levels and pay less than $15 per click, then you will have positive ROI.