If you are involved in SEO, Social Media Marketing or any form of Internet (or traditional) Marketing whatsoever, you are probably always trying to calculate the Return on Investment for your efforts and expenses.  In fact there are many sources out there like Computer World, Blog Tyrant, and Hubspot (just to name a few) that have attempted to do just that for Social Media and for the most part, they do a great job.  This article however is simply going to talk about Twitter and what we have seen before, during and after 10,000 Tweets.  Is it an actual ROI…you decide!

So how did we do that?  10,000 Tweets.  Well it certainly did not happen overnight and it certainly was not consistent.  We had good months on Twitter and bad months on Twitter.  Just like anything else.  Here is a small sampling of how we tweeted over the past 18 months:
 

So what kind of ROI (Return on Investment) have we had on our Twitter account?  Great question.  Here just a few stats:

• 46.63% of all Tweets were RT’s or @ Replies – Not as good as we would have liked…but hey, we’re still learning!
• 30 confirmed sales leads came in from Twitter – I don’t care who you…that’s GOOD !
• At least 5 new business relationships that have benefited click-finders have been developed, nurtured and cultivated 100% on Twitter. – Again, I don’t care who you are…that’s GOOD !
• Our home page has been RT’d over 7K times! – Gotta love the exposure on this stat!
• One of our blog posts has been RT’d over 100K times! – Still wonderfully surprised and astounded by this stat!  It was a guest post by our good friend and colleague Mr. Scott Kindred of Safehouseweb.  See how #3 above works?

What else has Twitter done for us?

Added real value and measureable attributes to our Social Media presence and marketing strategy.  Everyone knows by now (or least they should) that ALL of the major search engines are using social media signals (likes, +’s and yes…TWEETS) as ranking factors.  If you are not active on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, you are most likely losing ground in the SERP’s.  The Hubspot chart below shows a marketing score of 90 for our website, and look at what one of the ranking factors are…that’s right, our Twitter presence!

Twitter has also helped build our visibility in ways we NEVER thought were possible!

This mention on the Home Page of Socialstage is not only very much unexpected, it’s greatly appreciated.  It’s one of the little hidden benefits of Twitter and other Social Media outlets.  They did this mention without me even knowing about it, yet it was out of appreciation for my tweet regarding there Blog post.  Hey, it was great content and we love to share great content!

A final word about this accomplishment, blog post and Twitter overall.  We don’t do Twitter as well as could.  We are still learning.  The point of this post is show the average small business owner that anyone can positively impact their business with Twitter.  It just takes a little elbow grease, a little ingenuity and creative thinking and you can make a difference to your business as well.

If you found this article helpful and you enjoyed it, please take a minute and share it through any of the social media share buttons located throughout the site.  We love our social media friends and the shares we get and we certainly will return the favor when and where possible.  You can also comment in the comments section below and regular commenters receive “Do-Follow” link status to help you with your SEO program!

click-finders.com offers a full range of Internet Marketing services including Affordable SEO Services, PPC Management, Social Media, Inbound Marketing, Affiliate Marketing and more. Contact us through www.click-finders.com, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and our Organic SEO Blog to learn more about Organic Search Engine Optimization and even request a FREE SEO Website Analysis.

SEO IS NOT DEAD!

But it is changing, by the minute.

SEO is not dead - Not yet anyway!

As with most Google Algorithm updates, the flurry of the “SEO is dead” posts, articles, tweets and rants have begun on Twitter, Facebook and 1,000’s of Blogs all over the Internet.  And as usual, they are dead wrong.  Although the fact remains that SEO (search engine optimization) is an ever moving and fluid entity, it is for all intents and purposes alive and well.  The latest Google Algorithm has indeed changed the landscape of SEO and honestly, maybe even more than any other single update in the history of Google.  But that’s okay.  Relax, take a deep breath and know that SEO is alive and well.

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

Over optimization happened.  Google has touted for years, “Build good content and you WILL rank well on your own”.  Guess what?  That was not necessarily true.  In late 2011 and early 2012, several key SEO industry executives took a look at a couple of websites, both of which were on the same topic and about the same domain age and size.  One site ranked in the top three on Google and the other was on Page 5 for the same keyword.  The problem is that the first website was about 20 pages deep and was NOT developing and promoting content on their website on a regular basis.  The second site was in fact developing great content on a regular basis, promoting that content via social media and yet they still ranked on page 5.  So the SEO execs drilled down a little deeper and did a link profile for both the sites.  Guess what they found?  That’s right; site #1 had a whole bunch of suspect links running back to their site.  In other words, it was obvious that the site had been “over optimized” and the links coming to it were of low quality.  This goes against everything that Google has promised webmasters for years. 

Okay…so what happened next?  We are not 100% sure, but the indication is that these high level SEO’s took this data directly to Google and showed them the results of the study.  Regardless of how this happened, there is no doubt that it DID affect the last round of Algorithm updates.  Sites that had a lot of backlinks but no content generation and promotion tools were dropped (in fact are still dropping) in the rankings.  Sites that had good SEO links, a content generation method and good content marketing efforts did not suffer at all, in fact some climbed in the rankings.

HOW DO I MOVE FORWARD

Well if you have not picked up on it yet, you need to develop good quality content, and share it through social media and social bookmarking sites.  That means blogging about your industry, products and services and your company.  Next, you need to get the word out as far and long as you can for each and every post using social media.  Social media is the best place to share this content because if you are developing great content others will share it with their friends.  If you have good enough content it might even go “viral”, which is SEO gold!  That combined with a good solid SEO program and good on-site SEO and you will find yourself ranking better in no time.

INFOGRAPHIC OF THE NEW SEO:

The New SEO

Note that the “sweet spot” to rank well is much smaller on the new way of ranking.  Why is that?  Because the formula to rank has added a much more complex ranking factor in addition to the other already complex ranking factors of social signals, on-page SEO and Link-Building.  Now you have to do it all and do it all well in order to rank high in Google.  Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it sounds and we can help you!

If you found this article helpful and you enjoyed it, please take a minute and share it through any of the social media share buttons located throughout the site. We love our social media friends and the shares we get and we certainly will return the favor when and where possible. You can also comment in the comments section below and regular commenters receive “Do-Follow” link status to help you with your SEO program!

click-finders.com offers a full range of Internet Marketing services including Affordable SEO Services, PPC Management, Social Media, Inbound Marketing, Affiliate Marketing and more. Contact us through www.click-finders.com, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and our Organic SEO Blog to learn more about Organic Search Engine Optimization and even request a FREE SEO Website Analysis.

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ON-PAGE SEO

Finally, an eBook that addresses the needs of new and do it yourself web designers!  This eBook truly is “The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO”.  Everything you need to know to properly code and design your website so that it is search engine friendly and visible for the keywords that you want or need to be found for in order to be successful in your online marketing efforts.  And now, you can DOWNLOAD it for FREE, for a limited time only!

LEARN THE SECRETS OF THE PROS

• Which HTML tags really matter
• How to craft content that is search engine friendly
• How to avoid search engine penalties

Get your FREE eBook today!

"I eat SPAM for breakfast"

March 2012 – Google rolls out the latest algorithm update, Panda 3.4.  The number 3.4 is still in question as Google has only announced it as a Panda “refresh”.  According to Google, only about 1.6% of search results were significantly affected, still that’s a lot of sites.  Google also sent the update announcement via Twitter this time with a link to Blogger instead of just using their traditional media stream Blogger only.  Not sure why they chose this route to deliver the news, but it still got the word out pretty effectively.  You can read the entire Google update post here.  The curious thing is how dramatic the affects have been in this update for some sites.  Although they claim only about 1.6% we suspect it is actually much higher.  Our testing and current results are showing a significant hit with any site that is not actively publishing fresh content via a blog on a regular and frequent basis and sites that are “over SEO’d”.  What defines “over SEO’d”?  Any site that has an unbalanced link profile with a heavy load of links only to the Home Page.  Sites that are publishing a blog with fresh content rolling out regularly have seen a boost in rankings or have not been affected at all.  Of course by publishing a blog the site generates fresh content and a naturally diversified backlink profile and that is what Google is looking for as far as we can tell.

Panda Refresh Announcement

 SO WHAT’S CHANGED?

Well if you took the time to click over to the official blog post, you can see that they are pretty vague in the specifics of the update.  However, we have seen some significant indicators and several other well-known and established SEO news sites (Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land and Search Engine News)are reporting the same indicators in their “Panda Refresh reviews”.  Here’s what we are seeing:

• Diversified backlink profiles are winning – Having links from High PR sites as well as PR0 sites are more important than ever
• Diversified anchor text is winning – Varying your anchor text and not locking onto one keyword
• Having a mix of No-Follow and Do-Follow links is winning
• Solid Blog Commenting – Commenting on relevant blogs and linking back to your own.  Linking out to other blogs and relevant resources from your own blog is winning
• Content Generation and Promotion – Having a blog that is active in your niche community.  Sharing good content and attracting readers and commenters is winning
• Social Media – Tying it all together with Social Media promotion, interaction and engagement with your fans is definitely winning
• Diversified Link Profile – Making sure that the in-bound links to your site don’t just land on your Home Page, but link to relative content (landing pages, blog articles, etc.) and are as evenly distributed as possible is winning!

We’ve all been waiting for it, the day when 50 quality, industry related links outranks 10,000 spammy, forum profile links.  That day is here.  If you are already doing the above listed items on your website, then you most likely have already seen the benefit of your work, if not, chances are you have seen your rankings drop and in some cases significantly.  Don’t panic, re-read this post and go to work.  In no time at all you can be right back where you were or even higher in the rankings.

If you found this article helpful and you enjoyed it, please take a minute and share it through any of the social media share buttons located throughout the site. We love our social media friends and the shares we get and we certainly will return the favor when and where possible. You can also comment in the comments section below and regular commenters receive “Do-Follow” link status to help you with your SEO program!

Click-finders.com offers a full range of Internet Marketing services including Affordable SEO Services, PPC Management, Social Media, Inbound Marketing, Affiliate Marketing and more. Contact us through www.click-finders.com, Twitter, Facebook and our Organic SEO Blog to learn more about Organic Search Engine Optimization and even request a FREE SEO Website Analysis.

Getting to the top of Google

Ranking Number 1 on Google is the goal of every website owner that ever considered, dreamed about or implemented an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy.  The benefits can far outweigh the cost or effort.  Companies have literally been transformed overnight because of this achievement.  Check this post out if you have ever wondered What Organic Search Engine Optimization Can Do For Your Business.  That article is filled with data and statistics that can blow your mind, they are staggering to say the least.  So let’s assume that you are convinced.  You are ready.  You want the fame and fortune that can come from the claiming the #1 spot on Google for your best keyword.  What exactly is it going to take to get there?  A lot of hard work, a little luck and some patience.  But if you do it right….this is what you can expect to see one day:

Position #1 out of 171 Million Results

 HAVE GREAT CONTENT ON YOUR WEBSITE

I know, I know….you are tired of hearing this.  However, don’t discard this as another content is king post, it’s not.  Bottom line is this, people visit sites and send their friends to websites and LINK to websites that have great content.  If you don’t have great content, now is the time to develop a new content development strategy.  This may include redoing, updating or revising your “on page” content or it may include installing and building a business blog and the beginning of content generation in that form.  Blogs are wonderful tools for developing fresh, unique content on a regular basis.  If you don’t have a blog and are not posting on it on a regular basis, you will lose in the search engine to someone who is.  WordPress is a 100% FREE platform that is SEO friendly and more importantly, user friendly.

HAVE GOOD ON SITE TECHNICAL SEO

Make sure your site is coded properly and that you are “search engine friendly”.  Here are a few things you should look at and make sure that you are 100% optimized for:

• HTML Meta Tags – Meta tags like <title>, <Meta description=”XXX”/>, <Meta keywords=”XXX”/> are all still very important and you should definitely be using your best keywords in these tags properly and often.
• On Page Content – Use your keywords in your on page content. 
• Image ALT Tags – Make sure every image has <alt> tag descriptions with your chosen keywords.
• URL Structure – Make sure your URL structure is clean and concise.  That your URL’s don’t use random character strings and that you do not have any broken links on your site.

LINKBUILDING

Assuming that you have great content and that your website is properly formatted, that still may not be enough to rank you on Page 1 of Google, never less position number 1.  You may have to perform some website promotion, otherwise known as link building.  When another website links to your site, Google sees that as a “virtual vote” from another webmaster and considers this the highest possible compliment.  So promote your site and get as many industry related and relevant websites as you can to link back to you.  Remember, quality of links is better than quantity.  You can literally outrank a competitor that has 10,000 low quality links if you have 500 high quality, industry related and highly relevant links from high PR and trusted sites.  Most people choose to outsource this particular function.  Finding, cultivating and tracking quality backlinks can be very time consuming and monotonous.  Finding a quality SEO service provider that offers Affordable SEO Services will save you a lot of time and a lot of mistakes and potential Google penalties.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Don’t like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Pintrest?  Think they are for younger website owners or teenagers and there is no place for your business on these social media sites?  Think again my friend.  Google and Bing have both proclaimed loudly that they are using social media signals to help rank websites.  What does that mean?  It means, the more Facebook “likes” you have, the more Tweets you have with links to your website, the more YouTube views and “likes” you have the better your rankings will be.  This is compounded to the “Nth” degree with Google+.

PATIENCE

Lastly, you do need to have some patience.  If you just launched a brand new website you can pretty much forget about ranking on page one of Google anytime soon, unless you are ranking for a very long tail keyword or a keyword that has ZERO competition, meaning it will have few (if any) searches for it and thus useless to you and your business.  It takes time to build trust and authority with the search engines, in some cases it may take a few years to rank for a highly competitive keyword, and that’s with the help of some good Professional SEO Services.  So patience is a MUST.  If you push too hard or get sucked into “black hat” techniques in hopes of speeding up the process, you may very well find yourself in the Google penalty box or worse, removed from the index altogether.

Follow these steps and you will be well on your way to some top rankings on Google, Yahoo and Bing!  If you did just launch a website and HAVE to be on page one tomorrow, then you need Google Adwords and you will need to be running a Google Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) Campaign.  Our suggestion would be to split your marketing dollars on Adwords and SEO, that way you don’t get stuck on 100% Adwords for the life of your website.

If you found this article helpful and you enjoyed it, please take a minute and share it through any of the social media share buttons located throughout the site.  We love our social media friends and the shares we get and we certainly will return the favor when and where possible.  You can also comment in the comments section below and regular commenters receive “Do-Follow” link status to help you with your SEO program!

Click-finders.com offers a full range of Internet Marketing services including Affordable SEO Services, PPC Management, Social Media, Inbound Marketing, Affiliate Marketing and more.  Contact us through www.click-finders.com, Twitter, Facebook and our Organic SEO Blog to learn more about Organic Search Engine Optimization and even request a FREE SEO Website Analysis.

There is "good vs evil" in SEO.

Long has been the battle between good and evil and many stories in our past have reflected this epic struggle, but none capture the essence as well as Star Wars in my humble opinion.  One of my all-time favorite quotes from the movie is by a well-known character, Yoda.  During one of the scenes when he is instructing a young Jedi (Luke Skywalker) he utters the words “Do or Do Not, there is no try”.  That has absolutely stuck with me since the first time I saw it in a small town movie theater in Mooresville, NC.   In the story there is a mystical “Force” that is within all.  It is a state of consciousness that is supposed to drive an individual toward an action or purpose.  In Star Wars, the Force can be used for good or it can be used for evil.  If you use the Force for evil, you are said to be on “The Darkside” of the Force and therefore evil.  Whether or not you use the Force inside you for good or evil appears to be a conscious decision each individual must make at some point in his/her life.  Once you make the decision though, you are bound by ethics and morale’s either that of a Jedi (good) or a Sith (evil).  That’s not to say you can’t change teams later, because you can.  But if you do, you then lose everything that you have come to know and love about the Force.

So, what does “the force” and good vs. evil have to do with SEO?  Well just like in Star Wars, there are Good SEO’s (Jedi’s) and Bad/Evil SEO’s (Sith’s).  They each use “The Force”, which we will call Google, in their own unique and special way.  The Jedi’s use the force for good and promote websites using organic search engine optimization techniques that fall within the Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and by doing so, they increase the client website authority and ranking within the Google SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages).  They make sure the website is coded properly, search engine friendly, optimized for the keywords that will yield the most traffic to the website owner and that are relative for the search terms it is optimized for.  They then promote this site using organic SEO methods (press releases, article marketing, social book marking and more).   For these Jedi SEO types, doing it right and within the guidelines is not only a morale victory, it’s an extremely satisfying and honorable endeavor.  All Jedi SEO’s (also known as White Hat SEO’s) work within the Google Webmaster Guidelines and by doing so ensure their client’s receive quality affordable SEO Services that will stand the test of time.

Sith SEO’s on the other hand, practice SEO outside of the Google Webmaster Guidelines.  They work on the dark-side of the force for sure.  This is also known as “Black hat” SEO.  They perform such acts as keyword stuffing, invisible text and doorway pages (just to name a few).  They may even go so far as to buy links for their customer’s websites.  Each of these practices is strictly forbidden in the Google Webmaster Guidelines and performing these tasks or allowing someone to perform them for you could result in your website receiving a Google penalty or worse, being removed from the Google index altogether.   These SEO’s tend to promise extremely FAST results with little or no upfront cash and big payments due when they get you to page 1 of Google.  Be wary though…your page 1 ranking may be short lived.  Make sure your SEO firm is using organic search engine optimization methods that fall within the Google webmaster guidelines only and that you know exactly what their process is.  The more informed you are, the better the chances of you hiring the right SEO Services Company and thus having a successful SEO campaign.

So be sure when you hire an SEO Firm that you absolutely know what activities your new vendor will be performing for your website.  Not knowing could cost you a lot more than you bargained for, today and tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!  If you enjoyed this article please share it with any of the multiple social media share widgets on this blog (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Social Bookmarking).  Also, please feel free to comment below.  I openly welcome any and all feedback, especially from other internet professionals!

Click-finders.com is a full service internet marketing company that offers a full range of services including Affordable SEO Services, PPC Adword Campaigns, Social Media Marketing, Web Development and more!  Contact us today for a FREE no obligation SEO Analysis of your website and find out today, what it’s going to take to rank high in the search engines!

Click-finders is proud to announce that we are now listed on Alltop.com!  We are the newest addition to the SEO page and can be found listed here at www.seo.alltop.com.  We are very honored and humbled to be included in this list of distinguished and successful bloggers and SEO community members.  What is Alltop?  Great question.  Here is how they describe what they do (read the full version here at Alltop About Page):

“The purpose of Alltop is to help you answer the question, “What’s happening?” in “all the topics” that interest you. You may wonder how Alltop is different from a search engine. A search engine is good to answer a question like, “How many people live in China?” However, it has a much harder time answering the question, “What’s happening in China?” That’s the kind of question that we answer.

We do this by collecting the headlines of the latest stories from the best sites and blogs that cover a topic. We group these collections — “aggregations” — into individual web pages. Then we display the five most recent headlines of the information sources as well as their first paragraph. Our topics run from adoption to zoology with photography, food, science, religion, celebrities, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, Macintosh, and hundreds of other subjects along the way.”

Alltop is arguably the premier news/blog aggregation site on the internet.  The stringent review and acceptance policies on their site are notorious for weeding out recreational and hobby bloggers and news sites meaning that only the most relevant, active and on-topic blogs/news sites are included in their lists.  There have been countless articles written on “How to Get Listed on Alltop”.  No matter what though, the one thing that remains true to be considered for Alltop is simply this…

“Provide relevant, informative articles on a regular basis as it applies to your chosen topic or profession.” 

That is the best way to get listed on Alltop.  The next article on this topic will be “How to get to the TOP of Alltop”.  I’ll share it with you all….once I figure it out!

 Thanks for reading!  If you enjoyed this article please share it with any of the multiple social media share widgets on this blog (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Social Bookmarking).  Also, please feel free to comment below.  We openly welcome any and all feedback, especially from other internet professionals!

 Click-finders.com is a full service internet marketing company that offers a full range of services including Affordable SEO Services, PPC Adword Campaigns, Social Media Marketing, Web Development and more!  Contact us today for a FREE no obligation SEO Analysis of your website and find out today, what it’s going to take to rank high in the search engines!

I know that we have posted a few recent images that cover the difference between “Paid results” and “Organic results” so I apologize right now for another.  However, this topic is just too important not cover, even if it means I have to post another “Paid vs Organic” search result image yet again.  Besides, this is an entirely different take on the subject that covers SEO Advertisers.  But wait, aren’t they the guys that are supposed to know the difference between the two (paid vs organic)?  Yep….you bethcha!  We as Search Engine Optimization Professionals absolutely should know the difference.  So why then, is there the need to cover this topic yet again?  The reason for this blog post is to educate the general public about the difference.  I received a call this week from a potential client who found us on the first page of Google (just like they are supposed to).  After the initial introductions and pleasantries, we started getting down to the brass tacks of the conversation and I was asked, “if you are such a good SEO agency, why is XYZ firm at the top of the page and not you?”.  The potential client was referring to a firm that was listed in the paid search results (the very top three on the page).  Here’s another example of Paid vs Organic search results for those that do not know the difference:

Organic vs Paid Search

I used this particular example because it happens to be the exact search that the potential client used when searching for an SEO Agency to help him with his SEO program.  Affordable SEO Services Company is a term that click-finders.com happens to rank #1 for out of 150,000,000 possible results.  Pretty impressive huh?  Anyway, after a few minutes of conversation, I explained to the caller that those top three results in the slightly shaded box are actually “paid ads” and that he should consider that strongly before making a final decision.

“As much as I hate to admit it, there are hundreds if not thousands of so called ‘SEO Agencies’ out there that take advantage of unsuspecting and uneducated business owners.”

So why then use Google Adwords to promote an “SEO Company”?  Because there are just too many people out there that don’t know the difference between SEO and Paid Search.  They type in a search term and click the top result and don’t think another thing about it unless they did not find what they are looking for, in which case they simply perform another search.  An unscrupulous company might be one who then sets up a Google Adwords account and posts an ad for SEO Services and then just takes the money and does nothing for their customers.  Or they charge a large amount of money and open an Adwords account for their new client and actually show them the results they got them. 

Either way I think you really have to ask yourself if you want to hire a company to help you get to the top of the “organic search results” that has to have an Adword account and pay Google in order for you to find them.  I would tread cautiously for sure and treat suspect any company that uses Paid Search to advertise for Organic SEO Services.

Thanks for reading!  If you enjoyed this article please share it with any of the multiple social media share widgets on this blog (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Social Bookmarking).  Also, please feel free to comment below.  I openly welcome any and all feedback, especially from other internet professionals!

Click-finders.com is a full service internet marketing company that offers a full range of services including Affordable SEO Services, PPC Adword Campaigns, Social Media Marketing, Web Development and more!  Contact us today for a FREE no obligation SEO Analysis of your website and find out today, what it’s going to take to rank high in the search engines!

Not finding a mistake like this can really hurt...

I have wanted to write this article for quite some time.  It just seems there’s not enough time in the day to get to all the little “want to do’s” lists that I have.  However, I finally have a minute to sit down and bang this one out, so here it goes.   It’s an important topic and one that is all too often overlooked by Internet Marketing professionals (both in-house marketers and agencies).  It’s a serious problem that most often results in finger pointing once found.  The in-house manager says the agency should have caught it and the agency will most likely state that the company reviewed and approved all keywords before launching a campaign.  In the end, no matter how it happens, it’s still a BIG, expensive problem in some cases and one of my biggest pet peeves in the search engine marketing world.  The truth is, they both (in-house management and professional SEO Services agency), have an obligation to prevent things like this from happening, even more so if it’s done entirely in-house!  The issue is having Paid results come back for the same term that already ranks #1 organically, when results come back like this:

 
Note the results.  The search term was “Zappos”.  Now don’t get me wrong, I have a whole lot of respect for Tony Hsieh and his team over there at Zappos.   They have truly built a wonderful thing with an innovative, unique and truly effective customer service business model.  But to be honest, with all the brain power over there how was this missed?  Look at the results again.  The search term “Zappos” returned the “Top Organic” result and then the “Paid Search Box” also shows Zappos.  Call me silly, but I’ll bet you anything this oversight is costing Zappos a pretty penny every month on their Google Adwords account.  In fact, let’s look at a quick analysis from SPYFU.com on the term search term “Zappos”.  SPYFU is a well-known and search industry recognized resource for internet marketers for SEO and Paid Search marketing data.  Note the estimated daily clicks and cost for this term:

Now if we are to believe these numbers, and trust me when I say they can be deadly accurate, then the total monthly cost for this little over sight could be costing Zappos  as much as $99,300.00 each month!  Maybe Zappos can afford that considering annual revenues at just over a billion dollars at this point and further, some might say that having the top two spots on Google (i.e. more page one real estate) is worth the cost.  Some people would also argue that certain users will ONLY click on paid search results for various reasons (trust, ignorance of the search results page, etc.).  All of these might be viable arguments for a smaller company, but how many people that actually search for the term “Zappos” are not going to click on the top organic result just because a paid result is not shown?  I’m guessing very little, if any, loss in traffic if this one term was dropped from the PPC campaign, yet the monies saved by this simple move could then be spent on other more effective terms that don’t show up as the first organic result and yield even more buying visitors to the site.  I hope at some point, internet marketers wake up and realize that top paid and organic search results are not needed at the same time for MOST instances.

Thanks for reading!  If you enjoyed this article please share it with any of the multiple social media share widgets on this blog (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Social Bookmarking).  Also, please feel free to comment below.  I openly welcome any and all feedback, especially from other internet professionals!

Click-finders.com is a full service internet marketing company that offers a full range of services including Affordable SEO Services, PPC Adword Campaigns, Social Media Marketing, Web Development and more!  Contact us today for a FREE no obligation SEO Analysis of your website and find out today, what it’s going to take to rank high in the search engines!

What changes will 2012 bring?

It’s seems every Tom, Dick and Harry out there is spouting off some form of 2012 predictions for SEO and social media.  Some are valid, well thought out and data backed insight and some…well some are just not.  The truth of the matter is none of us really know the totality of the changes that will come about in 2012.  In fact, I would venture to say that even Google does not have a clue about some of the changes they will have to make later in the year.  It’s impossible for anyone to know for sure because no one really knows what everyone else is doing.  Sure they have an idea about what they “want” to do, but they still don’t KNOW with any sense of certainty exactly what changes will come about….especially later in the year.  So to everyone out there trying to predict the future, put your crystal balls away, it’s just not worth the effort. 

It’s no secret changes are coming in the areas of Privacy, Panda and Video SEO, so instead of trying to predict what the end results will be, I thought I would share my “wish list” for 2012 in the world of SEO and social media changes that I would like to see.  Who knows?  If the right people read it, it may actually influence a change [getting the Big Head].  Here they are:

PRIVACY – Google shocked the SEO world with the announcement that certain search terms from “logged in” users would be hidden from Google Analytics.  Although shocking, this is not really that terrible for SEO’s.  First of all any GOOD SEO is getting data from multiple sources and further to that, the amount of data actually hidden is minor at best.  It hurts more however, the individual website owner that is trying to conduct some level of SEO on their own that don’t have a bazillion sources for data collection.  SEO’s are a resilient and defiant bunch.  The data lost (minimal) will come from other sources and the more Google goes down this road, the more they hurt the small guy, not the SEO.  What I would like to see is the option for logged in users to “opt in” for search data sharing.  That way the choice is the searchers and not Google’s.  Talk about making some SEO’s mad…that would do it for sure! 

PANDA – No doubt, the most blogged about, cried over and for some websites, the most debilitating anti-spam algorithm update ever!  The funny part is that Google had been warning against low quality content for years.  The problem is that they never backed up their claim…that is until Panda!  The sites that developed and promoted quality content were really not hurt.  The sites that were not developing and promoting quality content however…well they were mad to say the least.  The funny part is that I do not believe Panda is done just yet.  I expect even more Panda roll outs in the 1^st and 2^nd quarter of 2012.  What I would like to see is for Panda to somehow integrate low quality social media into the mix.  Just like when content was king and low quality content arenas were formed and used, as social media becomes more prevalent, so do the people who try and “cheat” the system.

VIDEO SEO – No doubt that video has become the new “in thing” to do.  With search results becoming richer with news and video content, this trend is likely to continue.  The proliferation of and cost effectiveness of high speed internet connectivity have given birth to a new generation of marketing efforts.  The ability to craft video descriptions and titles to show up in search results will become ever more important.  What I would like to see is a Panda version for video.  Again, low quality should not count.  The problem is the only way you can effect this change would be to judge a video based solely on video description and title, so it’s easy to manipulate the results unless they count total views.  Great content however, will develop a good viewing audience and that feedback is what has to be included.  

Well that’s it….my three “wish list” items for 2012.  The one thing I (or anyone else for that matter) am sure of for 2012, is that change will come.  The other,  is that some will not like the change at all.  My take on it…roll with the punches, do quality work and build quality content and you will have little to worry about with the search engine changes.  What about you?  What are your thoughts on the coming year in search?  Your comments are very welcome in the comments section below!

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