Raw 03 - November 2008 - (Page 31)

THE MARVELLOUS MEDIA COMPANY RAW high as 70% of search clicks go on organic listings first, with searchers only resorting to ‘sponsored links’ if they can’t find what they want. Research is constantly being done on the way people use the internet. One tool in this research is the measuring of eye movement, recorded in ‘eye heat maps’. These colourcode web pages to indicate where users look; red for the most and blue for least. The heat map above shows an ‘F’ pattern - typical of most websites - with the user almost ignoring the paid listings. The text that you see under each link is taken from the target page’s meta description tag, which in plain english is a bit of text in the page not visible to the user but hidden in the code - your web developer will know how to edit it. This is your opportunity to sell to potential customers even before they visit your website - use it! Search engine optimisation requires decent content, regularly updated and presented in a search-engine friendly manner. Keeping content up to date can be a huge burden on smaller businesses who may find it difficult to allocate sufficient resources. We work with a news agency who write bespoke news content for our clients which solves the problem, although like anything else of professional quality has an appropriate price tag. The number of links from relevant websites (i.e. similar or aligned industries) also plays a part in search engine optimisation. It can be the deciding factor between two otherwise identical websites. But link building campaigns can be slow and pricey when done properly, or result in links from highly suspect sites if undertaken by some of the cut-price SEO merchants, in severe cases resulting in your website being dropped by Google altogether. More popular key-phrases can be highly competitive and require the introduction of niche to enable high rankings. Business owners can also become frustrated at the length of time it takes to get an SEO campaign on its feet. SEO works best with smaller numbers of key-phrases; campaigns with hundreds can become expensive and unwieldy. Why PPC? In many respects PPC is the exact opposite of SEO. It is practically instantaneous with campaigns live and updatable in minutes. Which can lead to some people jumping in and skipping the necessary preparation. Just like SEO, you need to have a good understanding of your market and do some keyword research. Google’s AdWords (yes, I know, there are others ) offer a huge amount of flexibility over the timing and placement of your ads. For example, you can choose to advertise nationally, regionally or simply within a radius of a postcode. You can advertise at specific times of the day such as office hours, evenings, or just at elevensies. You also have complete control over which advert leads to which landing page on your website coupled with precise analytics linked back to your campaigns. You can have hundreds of keywords and adverts, and even A/B alternate adverts to see which is more effective. In the hands of an expert these are fantastic tools, in the hands of a novice they can be confusing and overwhelming, resulting in some very costly but totally ineffective campaigns. So next time someone tells you PPC doesn’t work it’s probably because they tried it, didn’t know what they were doing and made a very expensive mess of it. Just as SEO is becoming more competitive, so are AdWords, with clicks in excess of £10 each in extreme cases. But it’s not totally down to money. Google will reward ads for higher click through rates (CTR) and lower bounce rates. In other words, if your ad is clicked on more than its competitors and more people stay on your website you may find your ad higher up the list than more expensive ads. Unlike SEO, PPC stops the second your budget runs out. Summing up So which is right for your business? Well, that’s not an answer I can give without understanding your business. If you want a fun analogy, SEO is a spouse, PPC is a paid escort. SEO is a long-term commitment, building strength over time and requiring nurturing and support. It’s less flexible but arguably more secure. PPC will do what you want, when you want, how you want, but leaves as soon as your wallet is empty! Whichever route you take, it pays dividends to have an expert working for you. Let them concentrate on what they do best generating traffic for your website - so you can concentrate on what you do best - building your business and making happy customers. millionimpossible.com 31 http://www.millionimpossible.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Raw 03 - November 2008

Raw 03 - November 2008 Contents Bradley Chapman Rachael Elnaugh Linda Klassen-Brown Heidi Weir Mark Asquith Emma Thompson Chris Wright

Raw 03 - November 2008

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