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Having trouble finding your Minnesota business in the search engines?  The likely culprit is that your website isn’t search engine optimized. Ok, so you maybe have heard that before and don’t want to incur the high cost for search engine optimization or another website.  But perhaps part of your reluctance isn’t related to high rankings, but rather how much business you could garner from spending money on an unknown endeavor.  If you have ever pondered this question or are unsure whether search engine optimization is right for you, read on.

Local search…what’s the big deal anyways?
According to the Kelsey Group, total ad spending online in 2007 was about 7% of a $605 billion dollar ad industry.  That translates out to about $42 billion or so being spent on Internet related media.  However, that number is projected to grow to about 21% of a $707 billion dollar market in 2012.  That’s a factor of more than 3x in the next couple of years.

But what’s more exciting is that nearly a 3rd of that above 2012 is expected to come from local directional media, where the highest growth is expected to come from local search revenues.  And as they say, that is where the “rubber hits the road” for local Minnesota businesses looking to improve their rankings through search engine optimization.

I don’t get much from my website now, so why should I spend more money on it?
What seems like a logical question, could be viewed as flawed in many ways.  First, how do you know you don’t get business from your website?  Do you track all of your leads and sales?  The above scenario could also be viewed as a trap that can best interpreted as a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you don’t spend money on marketing your business online, how do you expect to get a return from it?  Moreover, laying out the statistical facts above isn’t to say that “everyone’s doing it,” but more to get you thinking about why other businesses would be wrong in their global tendency to spend more money on Internet media versus others in the long term. Lastly, even if you track your leads and sales closely and note that your website is performing subpar, it could mean that your website is inadequate in converting the traffic that it does receive. In that case, it may be time to update your website as it’s no longer in keeping with its industry competitors.

What kind of return can I expect?
This is likely one of the hardest questions to answer because there are many variables that can influence return. However, I will give you some statistical guidance from readings I have encountered along with some personal experience.

First and foremost, search engine optimization is not about rankings…it’s about driving relevant traffic to your website. All the rankings in the world don’t mean a thing unless they drive “qualified visitors” that take action on your website. Results do vary industry to industry based on elements beyond control such as overall demand. Typically, the best products and services that perform well in search are commoditized   and well known given that the medium is “pull” by nature.

Take the keyword “lawyers minnesota” for example.  Using a free Google keyword tool, over 33,000 people searched for this keyword term alone in August. It has been estimated based on AOL data, that the #1 listing captures about 43% of the organic (non-paid) search volume for that term. Thus, in the above example, that would translate out to over 14,000 people clicking to your website. Taking an industry average of 2.5% action rate (I.E. - they either filled out a contact form or called you), this would mean that you would have at least 40 prospective clients that got in contact with your company. If you know your close rate, the rest as they say is history and you should know exactly how much you should be willing to spend to achieve the traffic required to reach your ROI objectives.

The Power of the Long Tail
As you probably know, consumers and businesses use more than one keyword to describe a product or service.  Generally speaking, the more generic a keyword is such as in the above example, the more search volume they exhibit.  However, there are likely other consumers searching for “minneapolis lawyer, minneapolis bankruptcy lawyers, etc” that also are potentially good keywords to target.  Fortunately, search engine optimization involves more than optimizing your website for a single keyword phrase.  However, keep in mind that your goal isn’t to achieve the most traffic, but get the most relevant visitors to your website that want to buy what you sell.

Do I need a new website?
Before you ditch your website in search of another one, you may be happy to hear that it may not be necessary to completely revamp your website to rank better in the search engines.  Many website’s can be updated with properly optimized html coding and copy without the high cost of a complete redesign.  But having a search engine optimized website is only half of the equation.  If you haven’t promoted your company online through any other means than just having a website, it’s likely that your website doesn’t have many external links (a critical component to increasing your rankings) pointing it.  Thus, your search engine optimization strategy may also require a focus to drive external links to your site through means of press releases, articles, social media, and directories just to name a few.

Where do I get started?
If your company doesn’t have a firm grasp on your website or search engine optimization, it would be best to contact an search engine optimization agency such as ours for a consultation. As every company’s website, ROI objectives, and search engine optimization needs vary, when consulting with any search engine optimization firm, you should be prepared to ask what kind of return your company should expect given your investment.  If your internal resources or search engine optimization company is unable to answer this question, I would recommend choosing another company.

As in all marketing practices, your website marketing initiatives should never go stagnant because your competition is likely on your heels and will take ground at your expense.  If your company hasn’t considered search engine optimization until now, it’s never too late to get started. 

If you are using an analytic program, you have likely encountered the power of tracking your paid advertising efforts by utilizing tracking tags on your URLs.  But can tracking tags actually do more harm than good?  Are you using the right tracking methodology to measure your campaigns effectiveness?

I was recently asked these questions from a colleague of mine who was wondering what the best way to track a text link from another website with IndexTools Analytics.   In short, I advised that the easiest way was to set up the campaign in the analytics to track visitors from the referring parent domain URL versus using a tracking tag because it would avoid duplicate content and also pass link juice to the website.  However, when tracking PPC visitors, its best to track from the landing page URL with a unique tag.  Clear as mud right?  Allow me to elaborate…

If you set up your analytics to track a referring or entry page URL such as www.url.com/?source=websitelink that’s published on another website, the good news is that it will track the visitor in the right bucket.  However, the bad news is that you run the risk that a search engine will crawl that URL and treat it as a unique page which unfortunately looks like an exact replica of www.url.com/ thus potentially diluting your PageRank.  To correct this, a better methodology would be to set your analytics to look for the referring parent URL (like www.url.com) if the link appears on more than one page of the same website or set it to track the exact referring URL such as www.url.com/page-that-your-link-appears-on if its on a single page.  By doing so, you will avoid the duplicate content issue and also receive link credit.

When tracking PPC campaigns, this is usually not possible because most PPC vendors like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. place your ads on more than just one site and also would be confused with your organic search visitors.  To remedy this, setting your analytics to look for a unique landing page entry URL such as www.url.com/?source=adwords will allow your analytics to count all the visitors that was delivered by that advertising network regardless from where they arrived from.

If you are currently using tracking tags on your advertising campaigns, don’t panic. You only need to begin worrying about websites that provide a direct link to your website and many don’t for internal tracking purposes.   In addition, your analytics solution likely has all of your campaigns located in a central place where you can begin your search for websites that you are currently tracking.  With a little investigation, you should be able to locate campaigns and revise them with ease.

For more information on how to deal with tracking tags and other tips, please visit Google, duplicate content caused by URL parameters, and you

If you didn’t recently hear, there was a RageRank update a couple of days ago. As webmaster’s across the country take notice, many either panic or sit back and relax. This raises a fundamental question to many newcomers of SEO: “Does PageRank really matter?”

Although I’m not the first to tackle this issue, i have always found humor in this subject because many die-hard SEO experts say that PageRank doesn’t matter, but secretly are happy to see if their little green bar goes up or down a notch. This was evidently clear when the last major PR update caused the blogosphere to light up like a Christmas tree of bloggers complaining about losing pagerank in dismay. But frankly, I like the the little green bar because of its ability to quickly delineate a websites link popularity. Sure, it may not be exact, but what other tool do you know of that gives you immediate feedback about a sites link authority just by logging onto a site?

For me, seeing PageRank may not tell the whole story, but it certainly gives me how much work needs to be done at a quick glance. The argument about regarding PageRank is that its not a true measure of a sites linking popularity. This i believe to be true in that it doesn’t give you the best understanding of all the sites that may be linking to a website. In addition, if the website is fairly new or was recently redone, PageRank either will not show up for the whole site or may be missing for some pages. If you are unsure of a websites link popularity, i recommend using the following free tools:

1. Google’s Webmaster Tools
2. Yahoo! Site Explorer
3. Market Leap

Regardless, as a good rule of thumb, the higher the PageRank, the easier it is to rank a site. However, its improtant to note that this is not the single or most important attribute when it comes to search engine optimization and achiveing high SERPS, but it certainly helps. If a SEO expert tries to tell you it doesnt matter, he likely has a rationale of its underabilty to truely describe a sites linking archedteure. But don’t be fooled, although its a simple 1 - 10 ruler, it’s still a good measure of how Google values the overall importance of a websites linking partners. Futhermore, if i could push a button to increase your websites PageRank a couple of notches, i would be hard pressed to find a SEO that wouldn’t want a little extra link juice:)

I spoke to a good search engine marketing friend of mine the other day, in which we discussed the pro’s and con’s of search engine optimization (SEO) vs. pay per click advertising (PPC.) But, first I want to tell you who won, which was me of on my soap box of PPC course…just kidding. We both presented great arguments, but in the end I think we both came out a little wiser.

According to a recent 2007 SEMPO survey, most search engine marketing firms report that a greater portion of their revenue comes from SEO vs. PPC. I found this extremely interesting due to the increasingly high-emphasis of building link popularity when it comes to achieving high SERPS in SEO campaigns. Regardless of whether you agree with the above statistic or not, building great quality link popularity to boost rankings can take time when you are going after highly competitive keyword phrases. And when you are all done trying to sell to the CEO on the benefits of all these great linking efforts…the CFO usually would like to have a word with you. Plus, (as Rodney Dangerfield would say) I’m not sure you’re totally familiar you runs that department, but I assure you it isn’t the boy scouts!

Making the connection and trying to prove immediate value for SEO can be a difficult game when there is high money at stake. In addition, ROI is of the utmost importance proving your firms value which is usually tied to a short window. If you are unable to measure, deliver, or maintain a healthy ROI (which is typically difficult for any medium at startup due to sunk costs), most companies will turn their head to what they know best.

Sure, immediate on-page optimization can deliver immediate results for some company rosy scenarios, but most online business models and websites I run across aren’t that easy. There are typically many fundamental issues with the corporate website that will prove to deliver poor results unless significant attention is turned to fixing the website to make it conversion friendly. This usually ends up in a redesign or a refresh that can delay results even further, which makes achieving the desired goal even longer to attain. A tough sell for most companies at a high level.

Lastly, measuring ROI for SEO is more difficult due to the benchmarking (and agreeing among internal resources) required to do it effectively, where pay per click advertising is relatively straightforward due to the known advertising expenditure that can’t be argued. Its a straight input output game as they say. Additionally, once real ROI is achieved through paid search, it provides a guided roadway for search engine optimization efforts, where the guessing game has been taken out of the question.

In reality, both are really important and should be considered equally if adequate resources exist. However, i think the above presents a strong argument for gaining immediate “honeymoon” trust, is easier to measure, and will guide a path for continued success.

A common question that is raised by many new prospects I come to meet is whether we have done work or are “niched” in a particular industry. If you are new to SEO or considering an SEO company, this is a valid question. However, by nature, I’m a marketing professional…so my common answer is “why does it matter?”

Ok, i know that this statement appears to be an arrogant. But please allow me to explain my position on the subject.

First, SEO is not marketing. It is a component, but its really an execution. A true point of differentiation if you ask me. Getting high rankings for particular search phrases means nothing unless you know why you are doing it in the first place and how its going to benefit a company’s business model.

Secondly, if you marketing professional, it simply doesn’t matter what industry you service. The question at hand is “how can i leverage this company’s strengths (or reposition its weaknesses), so that new prospective visitors will want to buy from this company versus its competitors.” If you are “niched” in a particular industry, a cookie cut strategy simply wont fit the bill. My question would be ” What are you going to do for my company that will be any different than your other customers!?!” Without beating the dead horse here, the main point is that I’m more interested in positioning the company in the marketplace than just getting search engine traffic. After all, not all companies are going after the same demographic, offer the same services, or charge the same prices.

Lastly, niched SEO companies cannot learn or leverage what is learned from other industries/disciplines and bring these new technologies to the table for the greater good. It’s about truly helping companies reach the goals, establish their business online, and get them the results they deserve. Trying to do so in a “vacuum” only supports a single ecosystem. By helping and learning from other industries, new insights and technologies can be adopted from one industry to another, therefore stimulating the entire online marketing discipline…for all to benefit.

Well, if you ask me, the above isint a just a position. It reveals the simple truth in fundamental marketing.