By: Chad Formica
Denver SEO Consultant
Search engine optimization... if you own a site or a business that has a site, than this is something that you have definitely seen or heard about it. If you haven't than your site is probably all the way out of the loop meaning that the site cannot be seen by the search engines at all. Even if you haven't received an e-mail offer for SEO services, I am certain that you have received a cold call from a SEO agency or local directory like Yellow Pages or DEX that has offered you what they call SEO.
So let's start by getting clear on what search engine optimization really is. There are several opinions and descriptions out there, but my definition of search engine optimization is any attempt to bring a domain (website address) or URL (uniform resource locator otherwise referred to as website address) up to the front page of a major search engine organically. Search engine optimization does not include PPC or CPC(pay per click or cost per click) campaigns or strategies and it does not include the local map listings provided by the search engines like Google. I am not telling you that obtaining a front page map listing with Google is not going to help your website or the overall traffic to your website, what I am saying is that I don't consider this an "organic" result.
Figure 1
Okay if you look in Figure 1, you will see a search completed through Google for "Denver Attorney", in this search you will Pay per click, a local Google Map and Organic results. I have highlighted all the different areas so that I could point out the difference in these. It will make a difference in distinguishing what is organic and what is not. Now, the orange highlighted areas are pay per click advertisements or cost per click advertisements. The webmasters and companies that own these websites have paid or bid rather on keywords with Google Adwords so that they could show up on the first page every time that a searcher typed in "Denver Attorney". As a matter of fact using Google's Traffic Estimator tool through Google Adwords shows that these advertisers bid anywhere from $4.91 - $7.37 to be placed on the first page. Ultimately the Traffic Estimator tool also shows estimated clicks of 8-10 clicks per day.
Looking at the same figure, you will see the highlighted pink area, this is the local business listings with Google Maps. The process of getting to be one of the lucky 10 listed here on the 1st page is not known. We have many customers that we have been able to get listed in this area and in future blog posts I will share with you how we think we have been able to actually get this done. There is not a way that we know of where you can pay to be listed here, it is up to Google and their proprietary process as to whether or not you are actually listed here. So the local Google listings is closer to organic search.
Lastly, the yellow highlighted area is the organic listings. To get listed here in the organic results is what we will be delving into throughout this blog. Anyway, these are the organic listings that are so very much in demand. The reason that these are more desirable than the local listings or the PPC advertisements is because this where the majority of the traffic goes to find the answer for their search. Throughout the thousands of searches a typicaly user has performed during their "internet career" they will usually find the most useful, most popular and best results for their search in the organic ranks. We can see that this is the case using Google's very own Keyword Tool. If we go to the keyword tool and search for results for "denver attorney" we will see that in the month of February there were a total estimated or approximate 60,500 searches for this search term, the approximage average search volume for this term is 33,100. By using the average monthly search terms (33,100) and dividing this by 30 days we come up an average of 1,103 searches every day for this term. We had discussed Google's Traffic Estimator tool that told us we would see an average of 10 clicks every day from the PPC campaign, this would suggest a conservative click through rate of 1%.
According to studies on organic listings versus PPC advertisements, it is estimated that 90% of the overall traffic will find their answer on the 1st page. It is obvious by Google's own estimator that the majority of the traffic is not flowing through to the PPC. Different sources have estimated that as much as 30% of overall traffic will flow through to the PPC advertisements. What does this mean for the rest of the traffic? My guess is that through the process of elimination you have guessed right and you are thinking that the rest of the traffic is going to the organic listings for their final selection.
So now we have covered the differences between the different types of search engine campaigns. In my next post I will discuss things you can start doing right now to prepare your search engine campaign. Please e-mail me or comment on this post with any questions you have.
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