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Got a client in a competitive line. We started right in building and paying for INK pages and in short order had them well ranked #1 to top 5.
The results - very little!!! Sitting on top of those INK results in the only two portals that count (MSN - AOL) were the GOTO and directory results.
So we purchased the same targeted terms in GOTO and WOW, step back - the day they went up, our clients business exploded. They are hiring a new employee just to handle the web inquiries.
The verdict - they will spend a whole lot more money with GOTO this year and next - when the INK pages expire they will simply expire.
-s-
I'd be happy to give you some examples. That's from a UK perspective.
Just glad I don't rely on Google. :)
Internet Marketing is all about NO set standard which changes overnight and you adapt overnight - over & over
When I first became involved in marketing STUFF via the WWW, I was very happy with InfoSeek.
During the Holiday times of the year a lot of new people get on the internet. A lot of people who don't use the internet much during the year to purchase things. A lot of busy people. These people tend to click on to the top ranked sites for given searches. (Those GoTo and Directory results that Steve described.)
I am one of a number of SEO's working for several large competitive e-commerce sites and I will tell you this. We use Overture (GoTo) during those "sucker seasons" for our full retail price sites. The rest of the year when we're dealing with the "regular buyers" we focus on usual SEO tactics with our cheaper, competitive price sites. During that time we stay away from paying per click. We focus on building strong customer relations with those "newbies" so they become our regular customers for next year.
The only way to pay the high click bid costs is to charge the customer full retail prices. You can only get away with that at certain times of the year. Those are the only times we ppc. To make some money but, more importantly, expand our regular customer base.
If Google vanished tomorrow, and all the traffic went to MSN, YAHOO!, AOL, etc, would there be any market for traditional SEO?
We've had similar experiences to those mentioned by stcrim in the first post- very little from Ink and enormous waves of traffic from GoTo.
Isn't getting #1 Ink listings on keyword combos that don't have Looksmart listings traditional SEO?
Isn't writing a good L$ description traditional SEO?
Even PPC can be "optimized".
Ink does not produce the clicks in quantity, but it is a just about affordable price for what it is, and helps with getting the board covered with the pawns. ( I see it as a chess board with Google as the Queen) with the pawns as important pieces in the overall strategy. Overture is a pawn that if you pay can be turned into a maybe a queen for a few moves, does this make sense?
I think in my case I will have to be very careful if I use overture, top bids on my main keyword are $1.50 in .com to rich for me, uk index 22p at the present moment. Question do the surfers know the difference between the index’s I don’t think so.
At this time of year the main traffic for my keywords are made by competitors, students, and casual browsers no serious buyers. time to wait and watch for the moment that the serious buyers start to show then maybe just maybe I will give overture a whirl.
Their seemed to be a time when siteowners thought that clicks were bankable and = money. They are not, Buyers = money. I would rather have less clicks and more serious enquires so I believe an engine like overture needs very very careful management and an understanding of the individual market and as such requires a knowledgeable approach by seo experts such as yourselves.
It is so easy to get carried away with the search for traffic obsessively watching the logs "gota keep the curve going up" I know, I am guilty I hate to see a down day.
$25 can be evaporated in a heartbeat on Overture. On Inktomi, it feeds traffic for a year. That's a fee that a small business can afford. Furthermore, Ink-optimizing one page often has a small price tag, especially if the keywords aren't overly competitive.
I've taken on several small clients in niche markets where we Ink-optimize one page at a time. As their business grows, they come back for more and more, building their business in gradient steps. And they tell others (I love that part).
For the small business who has chosen to play in the big, competitive keyword pool -- well, they'd better have a very sharp business plan.
