What’s So Great About SEO?
Crystal posted this on June 20, 2008
Image credit: Eoseye
Like we talked about earlier, word-of-mouth marketing is tops for spreading the word about a microbusiness. We could spend money on advertising and hope for a return, but it’s more cash flow friendly to get new business referrals from delighted customers, and then pay them a commission for the done deal.
The same apples to online businesses: build the business by providing referral bonuses, whether informally or with an affiliate/commission program. Brick-and-mortar or on the Web, the value in word-of-mouth is how it affordably and effectively extends our message to customers that are beyond our reach.
But online, there’s a way to reach people outside of these typical one or two degrees of separation…
Search Engines: Our Silent Partners
Our blogs and websites have silent, not-so-secret partners that offline businesses lack: search engines. Google, Yahoo!, and MSN will deliver potential customers/subscribers to our websites day in and day out, from get up ’til go to bed, without requiring a penny of payback.
Search engine “bots” regularly scan and scope our sites for content, and the search engines themselves will share our message with the rest of the world—but we have to meet them halfway. Specifically, we must make sure our content is accessible, readable, and optimized for what we want the search engines to find.
Search Engine Optimization, a.k.a. SEO is
The process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” search results for targeted keywords.
Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site.
My SEO Experience
Contrary to what I often read, in my experience, search engines won’t deliver a stream of visitors just because a website has regularly updated content and loads of incoming links.
In fact, a website that hasn’t been updated in over a year with few incoming links can survive almost entirely on search engine traffic if it’s been optimized. Compare these two sites:
Doodlefinder.com is my directory of specialty dog breeders:
- The site is over 3 years old
- The content has not been updated in 13 months
- Since it’s launch, I have syndicated only one article and posted once to a forum
- According to Yahoo!, there are less than 40 incoming links
- It doesn’t get any love from Twitter, Facebook, or other social media
- I paid close attention to making the content Google friendly
- Summary: Minimal effort on content, much effort on SEO
BigBrightBulb.com is my blog for microbusiness ideas and advice:
- The blog is almost five months old
- I publish new articles three or four times each week
- Readers contribute their comments daily
- I have syndicated only one article, but I post to other blogs and forums daily
- According to Yahoo!, there are over 1000 incoming links
- I interact daily on social media with a branded username
- I have put minimal effort into making the content Google friendly
- Summary: Continuous effort on content, little effort on SEO
Putting aside the very different target markets, you might think there is a big difference in the volume of site visitors between these two websites. I sure did. And there is a big difference.
According to Google Analytics for the past 30 days, Doodlefinder.com has significantly more new and unique visitors, and twice as many pages viewed per visit. Another big difference: 90% of Doodlefinder’s traffic comes from search engines, while BigBrightBulb only gets 14% of its traffic from there.
Were you expecting the website with the new, regularly updated content to draw more traffic from the search engines? I sure was. Instead, it appears that my small investment in basic SEO is still paying off two years later, even though I haven’t updated the content.
On the other hand, BigBrightBulb requires daily maintenance across media, yet draws fewer visitors. Notably, its traffic can drop dramatically on days I haven’t posted a new article and/or participated in Twitter. Aside from the occasional boost from StumbleUpon, this blog’s visibility—and therefore survival—depends almost entirely on daily attention.
So What’s So Great About SEO?
SEO is great because:
- It doesn’t require a continuous outlay of cash like advertising
- It doesn’t require a paid commission like a standard referral
- It doesn’t require a continuous time investment like social media
- The results can supplement, or even surpass, our other traffic building efforts
- There are plenty of free and affordable resources
As with many things, your mileage may vary, but for me there’s no question that SEO does it’s job to bring in new site visitors. Now the question is:
How well will SEO work for you?
My SEO Power Tools
Here’s what I’m using to improve BigBrightBulb’s chances to appear prominently in Google. Give some or all of these a try and see if SEO will make a difference for your blog or website:
SEO School: How to Become an SEO Ninja
Focused on the needs of microbusinesses and written for non-techies. Includes real-world examples with the big picture on how web traffic works. Learn how to make friends with Google, implement simple SEO tactics, and avoid behaving like a spammer. Great information with potty mouth language and good-hearted humor, only $39.
**$9 off until July 1! Use discount code MovingDay at checkout**
Creating a Google-friendly site
How to rank well on Google, straight from the source. Clear, detailed SEO guidelines and directions written for semi-techies to high-techies. Includes a wide range of tips, from making useful 404 pages to moving your site.
All in One SEO Pack
Plugin for Wordpress users only. Simplifies SEO basics like page titles, page descriptions, and keywords. Instructions and screenshot examples provided. Notably, allows us to tweak items for individual posts, which is not something Wordpress can do on its own.
Et tu? Do you need more traffic to your website? If so, what are you doing about it?
Tagged with: book review · SEO · web design · website design
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18 Responses to “What’s So Great About SEO?”
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it’s good to have a big picture and experiment on it…keep it coming…
Nice post, thanks. I think it is worth noting one key point - the dog directory is three years old versus the being just 5 months old. This has a lot to do with SEO results in general, as the Google gods tend to favor older sites much more than new ones, especially for the first 6-9 months.
Also, the niches are quite different, and with BBB you are going into a much more competitive (and sophisticated, tech-friendly) market, so naturally it will take more time.
All that to say that I agree with the thesis that a well-optimized site can sustain itself, if that’s what it’s developed for.
Keep on rocking in the free world…
Oh, there is a typo there - I meant to say “the dog directory is three years old versus BBB being just 5 months old.”
Recent blog post from Chris Guillebeau: World Domination Release Schedule
this is a very good blog post. the five reasons that you give about why seo is so great are GREAT! looking forward to more of your post.
[...] I touched on in What’s So Great About SEO?, as it is now this blog requires my daily attention. I don’t have even one article held in [...]
Nice to know about SEo.
i will use it for my website
Thanksx
http://www.riyogems.com
SEO is amazing and its true that it doesn’t requires the on-spot cash but then it requires time to serve fruitful results indeed!
I know what you mean. It can be tough getting up in the ranks though.
Recent blog post from Patrick: The Secret
Search Engine Optimisation can completly turn around a website & in turn a business.
If your just getting into SEO, its probably best that you start locally, If your a business this should be easy, for example, if your an accountant your not gonig to to see page 1 rankings untill you are playing with the big boys like KMPG etc, so you start by targeting keywords like, “Accountants in birmingham”, search terms like this are much easier to achieve high rankings in.
There is also some great software out there to help you on your way! My favorite, is Google analyticts and Adwords keyword suggestions, forget all the expensive programs, all you need to be good with seo is free and already availiable! the golden rule with Google is….. Comman Sense! google is not stupid and should alwyas be taken seriously….. period!
Great post, I enjoyed reading it,
Phil
Age is the first thing that came to mind, but on top of that, are the niches you’re going after with the two sites. Chris really hit it on the head with his comment; it’s all about being solid like a rock. Doodlefinder’s proven that it’s not going anywhere. (Doodlefinder’s domain also has a later expiry date.)
Recent blog post from Jeremy Lim: Can You Digg It? part 3
SEO sure is great. I am working in the recruitment buiness and with good SEO you can attract lots of interesting candidates to your internet vacancies!
Great article, I tell alot of my customers the same regarding SEO for relatively static sites versus busy sites. Really enkoyed the refresher.
BigBrightBulb is a good looking blog. You are right it takes continuous work you can never take a break too long or someone will start to catch you.
Recent blog post from Dave Dugdale: Cazoodle Apartment Search
Seo is a must, so is content. Business models differ and its important to select the right type of business model. The audience here that have commented are well informed and I don’t have a lot to add… a mix is productive, black and white is never accurate, I like seo because I’m into passive. It’s an opportunity to learn and be part of something that evolves, its neat.
Recent blog post from Seo: Why Web Traffic Varies, Why Friday’s Suck, What To Do About It.
SEO has been great for my affiliate marketing business. I am able to get decent search placement without paying.
This is a new school of SEO thought. I am dumbfounded by your revelation that doodlefinder is more successful in getting traffic than bigbrightbulb. I think I need to do more experimentations in my other sites and see whether I could get the same outcome same as you have.
Seo is very powerfull indeed, obtaining back links with good anchor text is the best way of promoting your website. Any easy way to do that is with the Do follow search engine! Its free and an excellent find!
I use all in one SEO pack for all my wordpress cms’s I build. I would say it is one of the best plugins you can find.