Most of them have gone for a limited Inktomi reg, a smaller number for Yahoo inclusion, and few for Looksmart but hardly any PPC.
This worked well enough for most of our customers, but with the big two directories getting more greedy, and 'pay to play' options coming increasingly to the fore, I think we need to change tack and advise more of our customers to include 'buying the traffic' in their plan.
What strategy is now appropriate for a small/medium company in the UK?
The very first thing to establish is whether the site is e-commerce (to sell from the site), or to serve some other purpose. If e-commerce, then it is no good just waiting for the major search engines to index the site.
Clearly, the fastest way to get traffic should be a targeted PPC campaign. PPC can be quite cost effective for terms that are specialised, and often, a SME survives on it's niche.
For those small sites that can wait (and don't want to try P4L or PPC), I'd continue to go for a strategy of generating quality incoming links. These include sites involved in the vertical sector and not just the major directories. For sure, the big search services should be considered for the "value" of their link, however, they are not the be-all and end-all.
I believe that careful seletion of PPC has "come of age" and now offers the SME the opportunity to dip the toe in the water without drowning.
BTW - This should be supported by other means of marketing and promotion as relying entirely on one method can prove a disappointment.
I believe that careful selection of PPC has "come of age"
I think this is the key point.
Undoubtedly true IMO, but smaller businesses need some convincing of this.
Even those with some money to spend are only prepared to invest a limited budget until they see results. Once the results are in, we should be able to convince them to invest more it it is warranted.
So what is the best 'toe in the water' strategy?
As I see it we can spend their money on any or all of the following (in no particular order):
* Optimise the site as normal (goes without saying)
* Inktomi
* Lycos/Fast
* Altavista
* Yahoo
* Looksmart UK
* Looksmart US
* Overture UK
* Overture US
* Espotting
* Google Adwords Select
* UKPlus
* Other paid entry directories
* Other paid spidering search engines (teoma etc)
* Other PPC (Findwhat etc)
* targeted link building
What is the best allocation of the customers money?
Are they promoting the company/brand, as opposed to a product or specific service.
Who are audience(s): geographic location, business sectors (if B2B), 'buying behaviour' (are they used to buying over the web or finding information from specific industry sources).
Are they (or their products) new entrants into a particular market place. If yes, their objectives may be more realistic to raise awareness in the short term, as opposed to actually generating closed sales or even qualified sales leads.
In a nutshell, it's about setting realistic objectives to a particular budget. I think one of our jobs is to manage unrealistic expectations - particularly in view of the plethora of 'pay for everything' SE's and directories and cowboys who offer the world for 5p (or 5c). All this leads to is a disgruntled client who will work with you only once.
May I utter the dreaded words: SEO may not be the best spend of their budget it depends on their specific marketing, sales or business objectives!
what about the amount of $. How should you decide how much money is the correct amount to invest in PPC in regards to market size, geotargetting, site of site, size of business etc?
'As much as you can afford' -
Fairly self-explanatory and usually the approach taken by a new company, start-up or an established company promoting themselves in earnest for the first time.
Pros are that you commit money to marketing as a business expense and you are serious about promoting yourself.
Cons are that without other benchmarking criteria you could be wildly under, or over, spending relative to your objectives.
'Matching Competitors'-
Particularly applicable if the company has 'share of voice' or market share objectives.
Pros are that you can measure your effectiveness (essential anyway) against competitors for equal spend.
Cons: Assumes that you have a Marketing Research resource to monitor competitors and that you are able to measure their spend. Worth bearing in mind that a large competitor may be achieving economies of scale in their spend and gaining discounts that you may not be aware of.
Percentage of Sales -
Therefore if you have sold 100k worth of business you may decide to spend 10% of your actual or projected sales.
Pros: is relatively 'scientific' and you can measure and quantify the effectiveness of your spend. If you have little competition in a niche market you can get by on a low percentage of sales budget, in a highly competitive market it may be a significant spend.
Easier to sell to other company Departments such as Finance or Operations.
Cons: Not so applicable if your objective is brand building or raising awareness in a competitive or new market.
'Experiment and Testing' -
Literally setting different expenditures of an overall budget in different media (eg. Overture, Google Ad Words etc) which are equally matched in their features and potential benefits.
Pros: The resulting levels of awareness and sales achieved can be measured and compared for a 'bigger push' using proven methods in the future.
Cons: can take a long time to set up and validate if the promotional requirements are urgent.
'Objective and Task' -
My personal favourite as it identifies a potential 'gap' between what you CAN achieve as realistic against what you WOULD LIKE to achieve if budget was no object.
A methodical approach can be taken with micro budgets built up by systematically setting an objective and then taking a realistic look at how much budget it would take to achieve the objective.
This method sorts the 'wheat from the chaff' and the 'broad goals from realistic objectives' for a company.
There are many, many more ways to approach budget setting, so I am using very broad brush strokes to save the 'reading fatigue' of a long email!
It's worth saying that all of these require some prior experience in a given market, a lot of guesswork and are not particularly 'scientific'. But, nothing in business and marketing ever is - that's the nature of the beast!!!!
I agree with markd that it has to be taken in conjunction with an overall marketing budget.
I have talked to one person who was getting 90% of new customers from her website and spending 95% of her marketing budget (not inconsiderable I may add) on advertising in local papers and hard copy directories.
But back to the point. The real thing about PPC is does it actually give you a return on investment. You have to have a site of good quality and either extreme niche products or pricing that undercuts competitors by about 20% to really get ecommerce business via the web - otherwise you get a trail of abandoned carts for your money.
Services are another matter - in the service industry you have to have a very professionally built site together with a service that people will not just phone up Joe Bloggs down the street for. You need to measure the value of each new client to understand the worth of your PPC campaign, it will take longer to measure and thus cost more in click throughs.
For small businesses I would look at optimisation for Google as being a #1 priority, get in Google get good rankings - referral percentages show that this is where visitors are coming from. This also places the website in a stronger long term position generally, once the site has achieved its Google goal then move on to the next stage.
Clearly each site has its own needs and the strategy should be tailored accordingly.
So lets consider the type of site that might benefit most, a site selling B2C consumer goods with a good price point.
Assuming that we have completed the following:
* Optimised and placed in Google
* Placed in all free spidering engines
* A 'Selected Few' Inktomi submissions
* Yahoo and/or Looksmart (or not, depending)
What is the best path to take the customer from here?
Assuming we want the site owner to be convinced by the PPC model, I guess we should take them down the path that gives the best immediate return, and then gradually include the other PPCs in order of importance until we hit dimishing returns.
Am I right in assuming that a suitable PPC path might be as follows:
* Overture UK
* Espotting
* Overture US
* Google Adwords Select
* "The Rest"
Should we definitely go down the PPC path at this stage, or is it better to take the Inktomi registrations upto the optimum? And what about the other pay for spidering engines - Lycos, AV, Teoma?
The web stats, contacts made, sales leads or even direct sales will identify what is working and what is not with the keyphrases, the site itself (are people exiting without making contact etc.) all before PFC commences.
I know that some see PFC as a 'direct' or 'shortcut' but I feel that if you are actually 'paying' for a click you should be 100% sure (or as near as you can) that the phrases you are paying for are targeted and the site is doing its job.
The client could also survey their customers and sales prospects maybe even BEFORE they undertake the SE campaign to get some info about if/how they search on the internet, which engines and directories they use, what are the top 3 reasons they wouldn't buy from a company on the web (assuming they have e-commerce facilities), are they comfortable about using their Credit Cards online etc. In this way PFC budgets could be spend in a targeted way rather than spending money where their customers do not search.
If they are literally a company who sells a product direct to consumers they could offer some kind of Sales Promotion or money off discount to encourage a response. They could even supply a URL to complete the survey online, thereby getting consumers to the site. Obviously, the success of this will rely on a good database of customers and prospects, preferably contactable by email to save mailing costs.
Sorry for the 'generalisations' above - all ideas should really be completely relevant to the customers market and objectives!
First thing I do is try to persuade the client that not all the work we do will be effective and in order to maximise ROI we need to trial a number of different methods. These methods are tracked to see which pull in the traffic and more importantly which actually convert. It may be that a £1 PPC will convert 30% but traffic from an INK page will only convert 0.5%. I really push the conversion marketing principle.
Once the trial is completed the successful methods are developed and once again completely tracked. It’s far easier to up the SME’s marketing spend when the figures speak for themselves.
Otherwise I’d have to go for original and highly targeted content for Google. Who knows Google may change its spots but good content always seems to win through on the Internet!
1. We're listed #1 in Yahoo.com for our primary search phrase. A gift from God?
No. It brings in mostly non-buying traffic from the USA, which puts us into penalty charges on our bandwidth allocation, but earns us nothing. We have now set up a USA link on the index page to re-direct USA customers, and I lease that link to a USA company on a weekly basis.
2. We are also in the Yahoo UK index, but get no more than 5 visits a day from that.
3. Since we began, more than half of our traffic comes FREE from Google.
They seem to be head and shoulders above everyone in containing and updating us in their index efficiently.
4. We receive between 500 and 700 unique visitors per day, but this is steadily falling.
5. I can't understand how anyone makles the Pay Per Click model work.
Our average spend is £30, and let's assume an average profit margin of 100% (so £15 of that spend is gross profit).
Our conversaion ratio is currently 1%.
If I pay 30p per click, I'll need 100 of them to make a single sale, averaging £30.
That's a loss to me of £15 per sale! Break-even is at 15p per click, and if I'd actually like to make some money for my work, I'll want to spen FAR LESS than this.
Of course, spending far less won't get you good positioning, and is under threshold for some. So PPC doesn't make sense.
Am I missing something here?
6. We're in Inktomi and many of the other engines, but their contribution is noise.
7. We tried for a long time with Web Position Gold. Whils tthe people behind the product are great, and so is there support - the product is buggy. Many months of effort delivered no clear results at all.
8. In an attempt to get some improvement, we engaged an SEO company. It's been shambolic, and we're ranked far lower now than we ever were before they started in the other engines.
9. When one read the magazines it seems that the same obvious stuff is produced each time, and I get the strongest notion that many authors have no practical experience.
It's a new and rapidly-changing problem-space, and I'm wondering - does anyone really know how to do this?
Cheers,
Chris
PS: ANy other comments on any of this also welcome.
(edited by: 4eyes at 6:35 pm (utc) on April 11, 2002)
Welcome to the forum
(Please check your stickymail - at the top of the page)
You're experience of PPC has been very similar to mine, there are a lot of tyre kickers but not many actual buyers with Overture/Espotting with general search terms.
The best results seem to come from very focussed keywords but even these really don't give a ROI which is worth the effort.
As to your experience with an SEO company - please don't tar all SEO companies with the same brush. There are good and bad SEO companies around, unfortunately the marketplace han't settled down enough to weed out the bad ones and the customer base is not educated enough.
Given your experience with PPC, it may be best to wring a little more out of Google.
Are you targeting enough relevant keywords? If there is still room for manoeuvre here, building extra pages which feature additional keywords may get you the traffic you require.
As an example, one of my customers was targetting generic phrases such as 'digital widget', 'widgets uk' etc
His traffic went up 10 fold when we persuaded him to add on pages with specific product names, eg 'Bloggs Widgets', 'Bloggs Super2000', 'Smiths Super Widget' etc
The traffic from these specific phrases is much higher quality as well - the customer is closer to making the 'buy decision'
It may not be as succesful for your industry, but if you haven't already sone so, its worth a try.
4eyes, you make a good point about Google. I've always left that alone, since its been the only solid source of traffic, and I've been reluctant to break it.
I will go ahead and do as you suggest on specific phrases.
One final question - I have a PHP product displayer now - I can say, for example:
display@code=xe052, to see a single page with th product photo, description, & customer reviews on it. If I make a page with static links to many pages like this and submit it to Google - will those pages index?
Thanks again,
Chris
[BTW - @ (AT sign) and ? (query) don't seem to disply correctly?]
It may be that you are getting a lot of 'rubber kickers' (pun intented!) and not prospects/buyers because you are not integrating your web efforts with offline promotion which may reach 'buyers' rather than 'browsers'.
I think that (thankfully) SEO and other new media promotional techniques require integration rather than the presence in the SE's being the whole story these days.
Have you thought about developing affiliate links with other sites which may also target similar buyers? Not primarily to generate better placements in SE's, but mainly just to deliver more qualified visitors?
I don't think I undertsand how integrating offline promotion helps reduce rubber kickers (love that pun!). I have far too many of them, though.
Back last September my conversion ratio was 2.5%. Since then, traffic climbed wonderfully, but conversion ration dropped in direct proportion, leaving me with huge traffic and flat sales. I've never got to the bottom of that, which is very unsettling.
If I were at 2.5% now - with traffic the way it is, I'd be a happy chappy.
Now traffic is dropping off again. Mostly due to Yahoo referrals virtually disappearing.
Offline promotion? Pah!
I know I should do it, but I've heard such horror stories of totally wasted big money, I'm loth to take the plunge. We're constantly bugged by advertisers. I guess we'll just have to wade in and get muddy.
Affiliate links - yes, we're looking at that, but it's such a grind to find suitable sites.
Does anyone recommend one of the afiliate companies - or is bespoke the way to go?
It occurs to me that one of the great things I've got from this site is the positivity of the people on here. You enjoy facing these problems.
I'm pretty negative on the whole business because I've spent so long demonstrating a complete inability to exerpt control on traffic. And since traffic is so key to business - I'm feeling nothing is secure at all (which is of course, literally true). This is depressing!
The answer has to be to diversify on the traffic sources. Reassuringly - we're seeing a persistent growth in no-referral visits (a third), which I take to mean personal recommendations. We do try extremely hard to do well for customers, so maybe that's finally paying off.
I'm already feeling better though, having just set up some very specific adwords at Google in response to suggestions made here, with more possibilities to come.
So thanks all.
I spose what I really want (ziggazig-ahh) is for someone to just do all of this for me.
It's a small but essential and impossible part of the business.
It's like a small terrier that won't get off my leg, when I have places to go and people to see!
My experience with SE optimization people has been grim, and the prosepct of jumping in with another unknown devil for a five month spin around Mount Futile is too depressing to contemplate.
Does anyone know os a "full service" company who will look at a business, implement a whole slew of strategies (not just SE placement, but al lthe other traffic bringers), and take payment in washers?
Anyway, thanks again, Mark and all.
Chris
(edited by: engine at 10:49 am (utc) on April 12, 2002)
This (in very, very broad terms) is about not only integrating online with offline, but also establishing/integrating (realistic) business objectives with a marketing strategy to deliver them over a specified period of time.
Without this 'blue print'everything you do will seem like it's futile and random because it won't be part of your plan.
You're dead right about avoiding 'advertising for the sake of it'.
Just one other thing, offered with the greatest of respect, if you find someone who will 'accept washers' don't use them. It really is one of the enduring lessons of life that you really 'get what you pay for':)
And I accept your "washers" comment. Mine was not meant seriously.
The real problem is in knowing up-front whether or not you're likely to get what you're paying for. This, in my view, is where "reputation managers" - like DOOYOO - can and should come to the rescue, but that's another topic, and I've already blurred this thread too much (for which I apologise).
Cheers,
Chris
one client has really cheesed me off this week - having finally accepted that he does need to spend money, he's decided to manage his own PPC with espotting - and he's throwing his money away by doing it wrongly. ok, it's his problem now, not mine, i really cannot be bothered with him any more. i'm seriously thinking about setting up a business in competition to him as he has a niche market all to himself, and i know that with proper marketing he could make a fortune, but he just wants the fortune first ...
another client has been totally the opposite with me - he's listened to me and accepted that he needs to pay up. he came round a few days ago and handed me his credit card - i've got a free hand to spend what i like!!
all seem to want to get the income first and THEN part with money to promote their sites
This is exactly the problem I am trying to address for my customers.
I try to take them through the process in 'small steps', most cost efficient first, but still most of them just don't get it. I think they get bombarded with so much spam about increasing traffic that they tar all paid options with the same brush.
It is d**ned infuriating when you have a customer who could make a fortune if they just took your advice.
I'm trying to move down the road with managing the budget, so for argument sake if they say they can spend £500 a month, I may do Yahoo UK a few URL's in Inktomi/AV/Teoma and then some PPC to deliver traffic. The next month it may be LS with major PPC if they have a product promotion. To me that is the killer benefit of PPC, you can set up shop and pull it down in no time at all. I had a florist do a big PPC push for valentines day. I've just finished a smallish campaign for a charity to do with the London Marathon. If I had wanted to get traffic from Google I'd have been planning 6 months ago, and may have peaked too soon!
Normally I charge a percentage of the monthly spend as a fee, but can give examples in every instance of users ovespending, on Overture at least. I've been reluctant to do espotting because of the way they manage the bids gaps, I really don't like it, would be interested to see others views.
Also only Overture at the moment, but looking at Espotting for a couple of UK clients at the moment.
There are companies that I discussed PPC with where they are paying over £7 a click for number 1 and number 2 is like £1.80 and when I cold call to ask why they pay £5.20 more per click, they say they want to be number 1 so they price themselves out of the park rather than having someone actively manage it for them.
The spanner is always going to be working out when the clicks come in, so in the scenario above you change the bid to £1.81 saving them £5.19, they get 10 clicks saving them £51.90, so you get £25 or so, any clever programmers out there ?
