New Article - Study Demonstrates Impact of Ranking on Search Engine Traffic

[thejenn]

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/003356.html

Some snippets:

"Business owners that are not familiar with the ideas behind search engine marketing often want to know exactly what their investment is going to purchase. Questions like "what rank will I have for phrase X" and "how many new visitors will I gain next month" are understandable, but usually unrealistic. "

"It's important for businesses to realize that long term organic optimization isn't simply about buying traffic, it's about building an online presence."
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How do you present measuring points to a new business when you pitch SEO? Do you try to give them traffic estimates? Do you tell them you can reach a certain ranking? Or to you just tell them what services you'll provide and leave the rest up in the air?

What about those of you fighting the internal battle? How do you convince the check-signers that they need to hire an SEM firm? What kind of data are they looking for to justify the expense? How can the SEM industry do a better job of getting folks to understand the true potential of good organic optimization?

[David Wallace]

Back in the "olden" days (1997-98) we used to guarantee positions but nowadays that is absurd. We do not guarantee any specific position or an amount of traffic. Rather we provide a service guarantee that is based on, well... the quality of service they will receive. We do tell clients that their web sites will be improved, they will have greater visibility in the search engines and they should see an increase in traffic as a result of it.

Common sense will tell you that if you are on the first page of results that you are much more likely to get web traffic as opposed to being on the 50th page. We educate clients that they really need to look at their bottom line. Do they have increased visibility as a result of SEO? Are they seeing an overall increase in visitors? How about conversions? Are their revenues going up or are they at least way beyond what they are spending on SEO? If they are doing PPC as well, are they tracking it by using landing pages and web analytics?

If one takes all these things into consideration, then it is pretty easy to see the value of a good SEO effort.