But five top directories are not enough. As I said above, I usually do at least 10 manual submissions, so I have to choose my directories wisely. The only two ratings easily available to web users to judge the quality of websites and webpages are Alexa Rating and Google PageRank. Both are flawed and often do not reflect the real authority or traffic of a page. But since there is nothing better I have to stick to these two when deciding if a directory is worth submitting to. Of course, one must not forget the power of themed sites. Whenever I have a choice between a general directory and a directory focusing on my topic – I choose the latter.

To make the choosing process easier I have obtained a list of article directories, their names and URLs. Yesterday, I downloaded Eclipse and wrote a simple Java application that queries Alexa Web Service for rating data, and makes PageRank lookups. I’ve run this application on my list this morning and here are the top results with Alexa rating < 100,000 sorted ascending:

The complete table has over 550 directories and can be downloaded as a tab delimited text file or as an Excel sheet.

Why invest in SEM in small to medium European markets

According to SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, the investment in SEM in the US will reach $11 billion in 2011.

Let’s face it. When it comes to new technologies and adjusting to new technology, no one can bet the US. It’s a very big market and there is an infrastructure built to progress new ideas and specially investment in new industries.

The “start up” never works that well outside the US, and most of the time it’s not even because of financial matters. Americans think “future”, always, even if when they vote conservatively.

So SEM seemed a logical thing when search engines gained importance in the sales process. People research things online – people will shop more and more online or at least will make decisions based on web research.

But that’s easy.

Let’s talk SEM in emerging markets.

When should one begin to think about SEO and PPC? Does it really pay to advertise online, when most of the country you are targeting does not use the Internet for shopping? Or when parents there are hesitant to discover the online world, because they still look at the tv remote with suspicion?

When you talk about the UK, France or Germany the problem isn’t the same. But let’s consider much smaller and underdeveloped markets: Portugal, Greece, etc…

I can speak about the Portuguese market because our company is Portuguese. We are considering other markets, but for now we have to stay within the confines of Portugal.

When we have a meeting with a potential client, imagine a hotel manager, we try to make him realize the benefits of investing online. He can attract costumers at a very low cost, his website should work 24/7 in that task and he should be proactive in influencing people’s minds when they search for hotels near his.

He immediately looks at us and asks the killer question: “do people search for hotels online?”.

We nod yes with a nervous smile. Sure they do.

Maybe not a lot of them, but some do. We can even tell you roughly how many. And you can think about attracting foreign costumers at a low cost. And we can provide estimates; promise certain results, concrete objectives. Do other marketing campaigns give you that? As a cool side effect, your brand image will get a makeover.

Hum… he looks interested, but unconvinced.

To give you an idea, the online advertising investment in Portugal was a mere 30 million euros in 2005 (23 million dollars). 5 million euros (3.8 million dollars) in PPC ads.

No wonder the hotel manager is reluctant. No one invests in online marketing!

So why should he?

Two words: “Low, Low cost”. Ok, three words. Sure, our market is small, but that means you can have a dominant position with a smaller investment. And if you look forward, the market will grow, and your company will be prepared. If you play your online cards right, you will be a leader.

The risk is very small too. PPC can be done with very low budgets, as low as 1 euro a day (3.8 dollars). Yes, that’s for the entire daily budget, not just a keyword. That’s emergent markets for you…

Low cost = big results. That’s our pitch.

And even if the costs are low, we, as an SEM company will make sure they will get even lower. And that the right keywords are researched, contents created, new costumers attracted.

In 2006 the growth of online adverting in Portugal will be 26%. That’s massive. Above European average.

Did he know that people that research for the keyword “holidays in Lisbon” could be interested in hotels? He didn’t. But they are. We recommend a landing page with info about the city, interesting tourist routes, where to eat, what shows to see…

He likes the idea.

We have experience doing SEO and PPC in the Portuguese market. We even do Spanish PPC. So rest assure – we tell him – we’ll deliver you results, measurable results in a short time and we have a long term plan for your online future.

He finally looks convinced and smiles.

The nervous smile comes off our faces and we shake hands. It’s difficult to get clients for SEM in Portugal, but it will only get easier in the future.

As for all emergent markets, the difficulty local SEM companies go through are not that different. First educate your potential costumer and he will understand your pitch. He should, because you give added value to his business, that’s your role.

At the end of the day, he will have a smile on his face.

Slowly he will gain more costumers online. And when the market is mature, he will think in disbelief how he didn’t see how important online adverting would become.
Nuno Hipólito
SEO consultant.
www.searchmarketing.pt

If you speak Portuguese, check out this site about SEO: http://esquilloseocontest.home.sapo.pt/

Feedvertising is a technology that enables bloggers to run text ads in their RSS feeds. One service I discovered lately that provides such technology is Text Links Ads. If you have a Wordpress blog you can join the network, which already features such popular blogs as TechCrunch or Problogger. See an example of feedvertising: this is how an affiliate link looks like in Problogger’s RSS:

Feedvertising is very flexible. You can choose your advertisers (your affiliate links, your own products or advertisers suggested by Text Link Ads), provide your own custom prefix to the ad, such as ‘sponsored by’, ‘thanks to our sponsor’ or whatever you like, you can write your own text after the link to express your opinion about the advertised product or service. You can also let Text Links Ads to run paid links not only in your RSS but also across your entire blog.Text Links Ads provides you with a plugin customized to your blog which is easily installed and managed just as any other WordPress plugin. Unfortunately this also means that if you have a Blogger account you are not able to use this service.

Feedvertising is not a contextual ads provider so you can keep running your AdSense ads without violating the TOS. Your payouts depend on the popularity of your blog, which is measured as a combination of Technorati and Alexa rankings, and can be up to $250 per month per link for the top publishers or $40-70 for moderately popular blogs.

For more information on creating an account in Feedvertising as well as the instruction on setting up the plugin please refer to the excellent video by TubeTutorial.

Why is your question best to solve the problem?

This question has to be answered to cater the needs of the ‘Amiable‘ type. Amiable must be authentic. They always engaged in a personal quest for their unique identity and live their lives as an expression of it. For them, integrity means the unity of inner self with outer expression. These individuals appreciate personal touch. They like things that are non-threatening and friendly. They dislike dealing with impersonal details and cold facts, and are usually quick to reach a decision. To approach this type you have to address values and provide assurances and credible opinions rather than options.

Sample copy:

Our approach is personalized to meet your objectives. The bottom line is that your results are guaranteed. Explore our methodology to discover how thousands of clients just like you have been delighted.

How can your solution solve the problem?

This question is important for the ‘Analytical‘ type. Analyticals need to be organized to act. They are businesslike and detail oriented. For them task completion is its own reward. These individuals appreciate facts, hard data and information presented in a logical manner as documentation of truth. They enjoy organization and completion of detailed tasks. They do not appreciate the personal touch or disorganization. Providing them hard evidence and superior service will capture you their attention.

Sample copy:

Our approach is personalized to meet your objectives. The bottom line is that your results are guaranteed. Explore our methodology to discover how thousands of clients just like you have been delighted.

Who has used your solution to solve my problem?

This answer is typically asked by the ‘Expressive‘ type. Being personal and relationship oriented these personalities feel need to belong. They often think that they must earn a place by belonging, by being useful, fulfilling responsibilities, being of service, giving to and caring for others instead of receiving from them. These individuals are very creative and entertaining. They enjoy helping others and are particularly fond of socializing. To address their traits provide them with testimonials and incentives.

Sample copy:

Our approach is personalized to meet your objectives. The bottom line is that your results are guaranteed. Explore our methodology to discover how thousands of clients just like you have been delighted.

What can your solution do for me?

This is the favorite question of the ‘Driver‘ type. Drivers are power oriented and seek competence in themselves and others. Driven by curiosity the Driver is often preoccupied with learning 24 hours a day. These individuals have a deep appreciation in challenges. They are goal oriented and are looking for methods for completing tasks. By providing them options, probabilities and challenges you will make them to respond to your prospects.

Sample copy:

Our approach is personalized to meet your objectives. The bottom line is that your results are guaranteed. Explore our methodology to discover how thousands of clients just like you have been delighted.

You might have noticed that each type asks its own question which basically is:

• WHY — for Amiables
• HOW — for Analyticals
• WHO — for Expressives
• WHAT — for Drivers.

To a greater or lesser degree, depending on the flow of your conversion process, the content and copy on all your pages needs to speak in these four ways, just like the sample copy above.

References:

Eisenberg, B., Eisenberg, J., Davis, L.T. ”Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank”. Wizard Academy Press, 2005, Austin, TX.

I don’t envision a “next big thing” so much as an evolution of current trends towards standards compliance, responsible use of technologies and semantics, which will hopefully aid in creating a more tightly woven web of relationships between resources. I think we’ll continue to see simplistic elegance and functionality reign supreme.

I think a lot of what is “hot” right now will pass as a fad, and only what is truly functional, accessible, marketable and useful will remain.

Not entirely sure – the sky seems to be the limit – but the wider range of screen sizes from which to view the Internet (from large 20-25” monitors to small cell phone, watch and PDA screens), as well as the ever increasing awareness for the need to include people with various disabilities in the demographics for the websites we create, leads me to believe that the next big thing on the Web will include being able to design sites to be accessible from any number of devices in a large variety of sizes.

I would love to see some real progression on the notion of portable information: my content as I want it where I want it and adjusted for various (hopefully better) interfaces.

Pure interaction with the user: giving the user the chance to style a site to his needs, save those preferences and have them ready every time he visits a site. Users will be able to interact with the content without the webmaster or designer having to constantly monitor everything in the background. They just have to set up the site, then it will be up to the users.

Paradigm shift: you will not search the Web for information. You will define what you want, and the Web will collect it for you. Example: I, the customer, will define that I want to buy a screen. This info will be distributed/collected by potential vendors. They will then present me, the customer, with the information that will enable me to purchase their products.

I think much of the hype of Web 2.0 will lead to more focused websites that not only do something (one thing) well, they do something that everyone actually wants and/or needs. Many of the sites we see now focus on some cool technology or concept, like social interaction, which has little practical usefulness. People rarely gather online and do things for the good of the community. They only do things that make their lives easier or because there is some intrinsic reward.

In my opinion, the future (Web 3.0?) will be the focus on content, and not functionality (which is Web 2.0). The sites that are able to provide the easiest access to the most in-depth and useful content will be the ones I would bank on. Everything else, including all the copy-cat sites that don’t improve on another idea, will go the way of the dodo.

Voice interactivity/navigation – users say what they want to do or where they want to go within a site OR a digital “site assistant” that speaks what the visitor would normally read – less text and a more replicatedhuman interface.

Stuff that “just works.” Users don’t care about the technology, as long as they can find what they want.

Fragrant websites, using XHTML 2.5 markup to drive pheromone emitters on USB sticks or embedded into SD cards for mobile phones and PDAs (making your site designs truly sexy). Odor-capture-enabled cards on digital cameras add a new dimension to images on the Internet. Does that food smell good? Book a place in our restaurant now! Ordering flowers? Have a sniff of these!

I believe that now that people are getting faster Internet connections, things like video that are beginning to take off now will be a big part of e-commerce sites and service sites. It is a great way to try and earn trust with the customer as you can show your face – chat to them and let them know who you are.

Customer service – I expect the customer service levels of commercial websites will increase to the point where customers will get a much richer experience from shopping online than traveling to brick-andmortar stores. This will allow a wider range of products to become available on the Web.

The search engines will overtake the Web and its content! More and more, search engines and directories will store the content of websites, and there will be no more need to go to the actual sites. Why visit a page when its content is available in at least 6 other places?

The next big thing on the Web will be family (or heritage) portals where genetic- or heritage-related families combine to create genealogy sites. These sites will maintain information about the ancestry – family names, occupations, photos, etc. – in digital format. Global weather won’t destroy or wipe out entire memories of families – it will be safe, stored on redundant servers and preserved in the “heritage family vault” on the Web. You’ll get this huge pool of data about people and how they’re related to each other. Whether it’s just family all within one town or one state or one region or one country or one planet, just link the people with a photograph and blurb. How cool would that be? An option for a fee-based service could be sending mouth swabs to get family members DNA-sequenced. Store that information for any need to match DNA for any reason – health or emergency, we have it on hand and ready for immediate use and retrieval.

I believe that the next step for the Web is total immersion. Cell phones, PDAs, laptops, PCs, TVs – so many different ways exist to access the Web and more are added every day. The Web is going to become –if it hasn’t already – the hub on which the world spins. Think about it :

• You’re away from home on a business trip, your hotel room is smart. It knows your name. It knows what kind of beer you like, how you like your coffee and how you like your toast done in the morning. It knows this because you bought the latest, greatest refrigerator, toaster and coffee maker for your home. Each has the capability to learn how it is most used. The refrigerator scans bar-codes as you put items in. These appliances use Bluetooth or some other RFID to access a secure database through the Internet. This database is then accessed by your hotel room appliances when you check-in. In the morning, when you wake up, your coffee is made just how you like it, and your toast is cooked.

• Your dog ran away. For a moment, you panicked, but then you remembered you had that new chip implanted (or a new collar put on) with an RFID signal. Before you know it, you’re pulling up findyourbestfriend.com, logging in and locating your dog. How? Sensors findyourbestfriend.com implanted onto the local power lines picked up the signal and reported it back to the company’s servers. The servers triangulate the position from sensor data and GPS feeds, then place it into your browsing window. You go get your dog.

• You can’t wait for the next big action movie, “Vampire Fraternity Followers of Dogbert” to come out. You just got off the movie’s blog, where the producers informed everyone that post-production is done. A few years ago, it still had a few months to go. The movie had to be copied to film or DVD and distributed. Because of the proliferation of Gigabit Ethernet, and the bill that was to abolish Net Neutrality was defeated, your local movie theater will be showing a streaming, HD projection of the movie, complete with previews and a few ads, in about a half an hour. Better get moving, if you want a great seat for seeing Dogbert lead his army of vampire frat boys against a world full of “blasted simpletons.”

The web is becoming a reflection of, and enhancement to, our world. It connects us, binds us, enables us and empowers us. The next step is for it to embrace us. Integration of Internet technologies into everyday life that does not involve a desktop or even a mobile/cell/PDA – how about stock control of your fridge via RFID and live links to online grocery stores? Or recipe ideas straight to your cooker based on what you cook? Essentially, bridging the gap between all the devices we currently use independent of the Web where there’s real value to be delivered to the enduser. This is the future.

Source:

The State of Web Development 2006/2007, SitePoint Pty Ltd. and Ektron, Inc., August 2006. Available at http://www.sitepoint.com/launch/survey06/

Flash is evil

Building Flash-powered websites is wrong. Storing your content in Flash movies is wrong. Implementing site navigation in Flash is wrong.

Then why are there so many Flash sites? They look pretty with all those neat vector graphics, gradients, animations and cool sound effects. Flash is the favorite toy of big designer studios and numerous amateur graphic artists alike. Flash is visually attractive, and in general attractive websites are more successful than the ugly ones (notable exceptions: craigslist.org and plentyoffish.com). But this is not the case of Flash websites. All the benefits of the nice outlook are overridden by the disadvantages in terms of SEO and usability.

Flash requires bandwidth

Despite of the DSL Internet access being available almost everywhere, there are still lots of people surfing the Net via dialup or other limited bandwidth connection. Flash files, especially those using sound effects, embedded movies or bitmap images, can take a while to load.

Disabled back button

Some Flash designers use meta refreshes or other tricks to disable browser’s Back button. As the famous usability expert Jacob Nielsen says, ‘Back button is the second most important navigation element after hyperlinks’. People not able to use Back button will click the third most important navigation element – that X button in the top right. Besides, if you are going to promote a Flash site via PPC, you should know that Google AdWords doesn’t approve pages with disabled back button.

Flash ignores users needs

Whereas the ground rules of marketing emphasize the concentration on the users’ needs, Flash websites ignore them. Take the infamous site intros and splash screens that are as much annoying as the 45 minutes of advertising and previews in cinemas. Or another example: the sound effects – they are can be especially inappropriate and harmful when you are browsing the Net from a cubicle in a quiet office or from home in the late hours.

Problems with third-party Flash developers

Unless you do Flash yourself, you might face some serious troubles with developers. Some of them code their project to prevent them from editing, thus making you to hire them over and over again as you need to do even the smallest modifications. Aaron Wall in his SEOBook (a highly recommended SEO reading) describes a case of a Flash developer who disabled the back button and then asked $4000 from his client to re-enable it, although the problem was caused by his own incompetence.

Search engines do not like Flash

And perhaps the most important: not every search engine is able to crawl and index the content of Flash movies. Even those that can often do it with errors. This is in particular the case of a website fully implemented in Flash as a single file. Search engines just wouldn’t be able to direct visitors to the proper page within that file.

What is Flash really good for? Banners and ads – it provides far more useful features then the traditional gif animation. Online games – remember the ‘Yeti Sports’? Flash technology – the Flash videos – for video blogs.

But as a website engine – Flash is evil!

Copy and Content: Conversion Perspective

People generally consider content and copy as two different entities. Well, it is true: they do have two different purposes. The purpose of content is to provide information of some subject. Content can be encyclopedia articles, long descriptive text, tutorials or even pictures and media (as non-textual content). The purpose of copy, however, is more incentive in nature. Although in some cases copy can resemble content; its primary objective is engaging people to take action. Making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, following a link or adding a page to bookmarks – whatever you want your visitor to do. So, while content informs, copy motivates.

But if you take a look at content and copy in terms of conversion, the differences start fading away. No matter what you are going to create – a sales letter or a long article, all the words must contribute to the persuasive process. That is, in the eyes of a visitor all content is a copy and all copy is content.

In case your aim is making a visitor simply click an AdSense or an affiliate link – an incentive copy is enough. But if you are serious about selling your own product or service, or even more important, making further sales to the same person (creating a repeated customer) – you have to find a proper balance between short motivating copy and informative content.

Consider an example of an online mortgage application service. When first arriving to the site your prospect customer is in the search for answers to the key questions in his mind: “Am I in the right place? What should I do?” Here the frontpage copy has to do its job by engaging the visitor to go deeper. And the conditions of eligibility, which are the informative content, have to be at least equally incentive in order to capture the visitor’s attention and eventually motivate him to submit an application. Therefore, even such content as loan eligibility has to be written observing the core rules of copywriting which concern the usability, performance and motivation.

Copy and content must complement each other. There is no much use in a brilliant copy if it is accompanied by poor content which disappoints visitors. Same is right the other way around – a juicy, magical content will not do its job half as well if it is presented by a meaningless and vague copy.

Thus, so far there have been historical and organizational differences between the creation of copy and content. But these differences simply reflect the flaws in the persuasive and conversion processes. It is high time that you should break the barriers for the sake of the improved user experience and the success of your online business.

References:

Eisenberg, B., Eisenberg, J., Davis, L.T. “Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank”. Wizard Academy Press, 2005, Austin, TX.

Many web marketers see paid search marketing as the fastest way to bring traffic to their online shops. At the first glance the pay-per-click scheme looks easy: you bid on a keyword, higher bids get higher positions (Overture), and web users see your listing among the top results for your target keyword. You don’t have to invest into search engine optimization and link building; you pay for your visitors and hope to quickly get targeted traffic. But did you notice that more and more often you have to raise bids above the threshold of profitability in order to put your listings to the top of paid search results? With money you spend for PPC exceeding your revenues is it worth to do online business at all? Well, it is time to seriously consider promoting your website in natural (organic) search results.

No matter what your niche is, targeting one- or two-word search terms is difficult and ineffective. Not just you have to compete with big established websites, generic terms themselves have low conversion rates. Long tail keywords however are less popular, less competitive and are less searched, but when used collectively they are able to drive a lot of quality traffic to your website which can be quite easily converted into sales. People looking for 4 or 5 keyword phrases are more likely to become a buyer. Generic keywords indicate that a person is probably doing a research without an intention to buy something immediately (so-called “early stage researcher”).

Facts about Natural and Paid Search

1. Natural Search pulls 250% more traffic than the paid search.

Take a look at the picture below. This is a hit map, it tracks eye and click activity on a web page. What you see is a regular Google search results page. The brighter colors represent areas where the majority of web users’ eyes and clicks go when they get to this page. This map is produced by an infrared camera that tracks every eye movement and click that a surfer makes. This study was done with about four hundred people but actually their behavioral patterns are so similar that eight surfers are enough to produce an analogous image.

Fig. 1. Google SEPR hit-map. Click to see the enlarged version. Source: EyeTools.com

On the hit map colors represent eye hit distribution, purple crosses (with a number of a tested subject) show where users click. Red color indicates the hottest spot on the page where the most of eye hits are made (click here to see the hit map explained).You can see that the first listing gets the biggest portion on the clicks, second receive less, and there are also some for the third listing. You can also see that many people scroll the page to the bottom and click the 8th, 9th and 10th listings too although the number of clicks in this area can be hundreds time less than in the top left area. The brighter areas form so-called “Golden Triangle” and you can clearly see than most of the people spend their time looking through the natural search results.

Now take a look at the right side of the page. The number of eye hits is far less even than at the bottom of the page. So being number 9 or 10 in the Google natural search results will bring you nearly the same number of clicks as from the first position in the paid search results, and far more than from the second, third and lower sponsored listings.

2. Paid Search Lives Off Natural Search

AdWords, as well as any other PPC program, is a parasitic system – it uses natural search to make money from the paid listings. Google performs millions searches every day and most of them are from people who don’t even look at the paid results. You probably remember the time when Ask.com was experimenting with paid search? Ask.com used to deliver paid listings only above the page-fold so that users had to scroll down to get to natural results. It had seriously damaged the user experience, and surfers simply stopped using it. Google is not going to repeat this mistake. Its initial popularity has grown from the quality of search results, and therefore paid listings have to be placed in areas where they don’t disturb users – on the right side.

So the eye-hit map proves quite clearly – web users search organic results first (even if they have to scroll down!) and only after that and not always look through the paid search listings.

Let’s visit Google and search for “best plasma tv”. In the SERP (screenshot) you can see some listings like “consumer reviews on plasma TV”, “plasma TV buying guide”, “compare plasma TV prices” and so on. These are information based websites. Google search algorithms return information on plasma TV, and the results are contextually accurate. If you take a look at the paid search listings you will notice that some of them are trying to imitate the listings in the natural results by using the dynamic keyword-insertion, which adds keywords from the query into link text and listing body.

Bottom line is: web users are conditioned to free search without ads. This is a fact that people searching for a product review or a particular model are looking for information before making a buying decision. So when a person looks at a SERP, the first positions in natural search – even if there are paid listing above it – is where clicks are made. This is proven by eye tracking studies that show that 63% of top organic listings will get a click.

3. Long Tail Search Keywords Convert The Best.

Obviously one multiple-keyword phrase brings much less traffic then a generic one-word search term. But you can be sure that if someone searches for a “laptop”, he is still researching. On the contrary if a person searches for a “Sony Vaio laptop under $1000” – he is a hot prospect. What is equally important – long tail search terms are easier to rank for. Take a look at few examples. Let’s go to MSN.com (12.8% search share in the U.S.) and search for “affordable custom kitchen cabinets” (screenshot). The “Golden Triangle” applies also to MSN SEPRs as well as to ANY other web page – the first area people look at is top-left then middle-left. Let’s click on the third listing, which possibly gets quite a lot of traffic. What do you see? EuroKitchenBathCabinets.com- a pretty looking website. And now take a look at its PageRank (if you have Google toolbar installed in your browser). PageRank equals 2! Well, obviously the author of this page didn’t have to do much work to get into number 3 position in MSN. If you spent just a week for link building you will get PR2 quite easily after the next Google PageRank update. Of course PageRank and MSN ranking are not directly connected. But PR allows us to estimate how big the popularity of a page is, and MSN also uses page popularity to assign ranks.

Now lets search for “sofa slip covers cheap” (screenshot). Take a look at the second position: http://www.homenexotic.com/sofa-covers.htm. This is an AdSense website – a site which makes money from AdSense advertising program. Its PageRank is zero! This page has almost no popularity and yet it is in MSN top ten! You see the AdSense block, some content, links to related articles. This page is probably auto-generated, so it takes almost no effort to maintain it.

(By the way, if you still don’t use AdSense – you are probably missing a source of substantial income. Do go and open an AdSense account now: It takes almost no time, and can bring you few extra hundreds $$).

Naturally you wouldn’t see sites like these in the results for one- or two-word search terms. Generic terms are too competitive, there too many high-quality websites struggling to rank higher for them. But with long-tail search phrases – no problem, even mediocre pages get substantial traffic.

4. Natural Search Visitors Convert Nearly 30% Higher Than Paid Search.

There are many merchant websites utilizing special conversion tracking systems that enable them to see what the conversion rates are for different groups of visitors. And according to the statistics supplied by these systems visitors from natural search results convert 30% more frequently than paid search visitors. If your website is marginally profitable from the paid search traffic you are going to do even better with natural search visitors. So for every $1000 of revenue you will get $1300. And that is not the whole picture: don’t forget that natural search brings you 2.5 times more visitors than PPC. You will see a 325% increase in revenue once you get the free traffic from the natural search results. What’s more, unlike paid search, this traffic is free.

Another catch – to increase chances of a user clicking a paid search ad some people open two accounts to show two listings both leading to the same landing page. Not just promoting them to the top in paid results is difficult, but also users might click both listings and make you pay twice for the same visitor! Natural search results also sometimes show two listings for one site: the front page and one of the second-tier pages, if they both rank equally well for a specific search term (see first and second positions on this screenshot). See how such a “double” listing is reflected in the eye-hit map.

Fig.2 Hit map for a Google SERP double listing. Click to see an enlarged version. Source: EyeTools.com

Look how many people scan the entire long headline of the double listing! Even the one above it doesn’t get as much of the eye activity. Obviously chances of a user clicking this link are higher than any other one. Eye tracking study reports 70% of clicking chance for double listings – 70% of al the clicks that happen on a SERP! And natural search is the only way to get such a listing.

Let’s examine another evidence. Look at a table showing the percentage of clicks made in organic search results, featured ads, paid listings on top of the search results and in the side bar. Users are grouped according to their educational level. Among all the groups only high-school students tend to click more on the paid listings than on the organic results. So if your targeted audience is high-school kids – PPC is for you. But note – high-school students do not have much of a buying power, what they can spend is their allowance and lunch money. Therefore in most cases you are better off with clicks from the more educated groups – and they love organic search results.

Table 1. Level of education and SERP usage patterns. Source: ConvertLinks.com

To Sum Up

1. 1. For many websites more than half of traffic comes with long tail keywords than from shorter one-two keyword phrases. For some recently created sites almost all traffic is supplied by long tail keywords.
2. Targeting long tail keyword phrases will bring more revenue since they represent a bigger part of your traffic.
3. You will make more sales with long tail keywords because they have a higher conversion ratio.
4. It doesn’t take much effort to rank well for long tail keywords in natural search results.
5. You will get more income from visitors coming from natural search results because they convert better than those arriving to your website via paid listings.
6. Having traffic from the long tail keywords in natural search results saves you your PPC campaign money.

I am not telling you to stop using paid search marketing immediately. Pay per click is just one of many options to promote a site. Unfortunately it is not the one suitable for new sites. Unless your purpose is to get a quick exposure and you do not care about making any profits – paid search marketing may work well. But if you are trying to make money from a fresh site with paid listings – you’d better be sure about the conversion ratio of your landing pages and target audience. And the best way to figure out these ratios is first trying to promote your pages to the natural search results with long tail keywords.

Sources:

1. ConvertLinks.com. Video 1. Available at: http://www.convertlinks.com/video1.php?10000 Downloaded on 12.09.06

2. EyeTools.com. “Eyetools, Enquiro, and Did-it uncover Search’s Golden Triangle”. Available at: http://www.eyetools.com/inpage/research_google_eyetracking_heatmap.htm

I took the liberty of summing up the main ideas of his article as well as the critique of his approach.

Website Project

Compared to the traditional media, websites’ potential for evolving is bigger. A fresh made website is more like a DNA for a future creature rather than a ready-to-use product.

Very often there is a strong desire to create a website, but the perception of the desired result is rather vague. There is a need to get a picture of the website’s course of evolvement. There is a need to understand the relationship between parts of the project. There is a need to balance these parts out and align their development to the general course.

Elements Diagram

The following approach helps to illustrate the website’s development and is very useful in the interaction with the customer.

The project is broken into three pairs of parameters. Following the discussion with the customer, each of the six parameters gets 1 to 10 points of importance. These points are mapped on the diagram and the resulting figure shows the current perception of the project.

The black figure demonstrates a skew for the website’s outlook and misses other important features. This might eventually lead to the project failure, since content, audience and sales channels are neglected.

The green figure has all the elements properly balanced.

1^st Pair:

What to sell? – When assessing this element, you evaluate company’s competitive advantages and quality of goods and services. Quite often people tend to overestimate these features. It helps to picture an ideal company with ideal goods and services, assign it 10 points, and then compare it to the company being assessed.

How to sell? – Evaluate how much resources will be allocated to the promotion and development of the website. If ‘What’ is quite small, there is no need to allocate too much resources to ‘How’ – you might get a negative ROI. This is quite obvious. However some fail to see that the same is true in the inverse direction as well. Often the resources allocated to the online promotion of a top-class good or service are inadequate.

2^nd Pair:

Company – How will the website influence the company? What is the value of the website for the company?

Audience – What is the website’s value for the target audience?

If the website is created for the sole reason such as ‘everyone else has one’ – it would have a little value for the company. You shouldn’t expect such a website to attract a considerable audience. On the contrary, if a website is of a great value for the target audience, it will achieve a great exposure and become a valuable asset for the company as well.

3^rd Pair:

Outlook and Content.

An attractive outlook has a great positive influence on the content perception. But when a fantastically looking page has low-quality content in it, this looks disappointing. Very often people put too much effort into impressive design, which has no value without quality content. Sometimes content is served in a corporate manner, a heavy and pretentious talk which is difficult to understand and unpleasant to read. Sticking to the ClueTrain manifesto ideas will help to serve your content in an attractive, clear and persuasive way.

The freshness of the content is extremely important. Frequently updated information covering the most recent development of your topic will attract more web-surfers and will make sure that many of them will become recurring visitors.

Critique to this approach.

The main weakness of the approach described above is the lack of an accurate measurement system for the evaluation of the project elements. Any attempts to assign points to assess the elements are based on intuition rather than on commonly accepted measurement scales. Therefore this diagram cannot be considered as a development tool. However its value as a framework assisting to understand the relationships between the parts of a project is high.