Guruisms for the week of 23-02-09
Technological progress
has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
Aldous Huxley
07/26/1894 - 11/22/1963
English critic & novelist. Author of
Brave New World, one of my favorites.
Sometimes we get so enthralled with the hype and hope of technology, we
forget the present reality that technology has no value if it does not serve
mankind for the better.
It’s all about the sale and NOT the software..
Search Engines don’t buy shit! But humans do.
Sex Sells --- to people looking to buy sex. The same principle applies
to refrigerators.
The Anti-seo SEO Guru
cynic and unemployed politician
The True Cost of SEO
While there are a great many heated debates regarding the
scope of what SEO entails, it is generally accepted, (that means not argued
over much in SEO communities),that SEO’s basic function is the traffic
generation from organic, (mistakenly used to imply free), search engine
results. The truth, while admittedly brutal for some, is that more times than
not, traffic generation is more cost effective if you simply buy it. PPC has it’s
merits.
That statement may seem odd coming from a man who has
capitalized significantly on “organic” placements but it is only because I am
one of that small percentage of netizens who actually does know the real cost
of those “free” placements. That voice
of experience is telling you the truth now; whether paying for PPC, purchasing prospects from affiliates, or hiring the
assistance of an SEO ---- you ARE paying for traffic. Well, --- If you got
lucky and hired the right seo anyway. If not, then you’re just paying.
Would you like to know the secret of figuring out the true
cost of SEO for yourself?
It’s ROI. Return on
Investment
THAT is what
establishes the value of traffic. Duh! We all knew that right? Then why are
there so many really crappy websites all scrambling for top spots?
The truth is
that all traffic, regardless of where it came from, is worth something.
At the very least, an effort. But the word something is a very
broad, very subjective term.
I may be
running the risk of a death sentence by the grammar police here but I feel this
MUST be said. To me ----
It ain’t worth a squirt if
it don’t convert
Your business will die if
they don’t buy
If it don’t convert – it
don’t work
Learn
to convert - It doesn't hurt
Made
my point yet?
So I’ve conceded, all traffic, ANY traffic, does have
some inherent value. However, if you are
able to use logic to come to a conclusion and are able to rise above the
din of the blinded few, then maybe you can agree with
me that those 4 grammatically flawed euphemisms above have value as well.
If you can agree that the end goal of any traffic
generating strategy should be increased conversions, (hopefully resulting in
increased profits), then the idea of increasing conversions has to have at
least equal appeal to increased seo, (whatever that is),efforts.
Think about this.
If your site enjoys an average conversion rate of .05%,
meaning 1 out of every 200 unique hits converts to a desired action, then which
is better in terms of return? Increasing traffic to 1000 unique hits to get 5
sales, OR increase conversions to say 10% or 20 orders out of every 200 hits?
WHOA THERE COWKID, we’re not through thinkin yet.
What would you think the cost of generating 5 times more
traffic would be compared to increasing conversions to 10 %?
Now, which approach do YOU think makes more sense?
The reality is that whether you think more traffic or
more conversions is better ---- you’re right! I’m not trying to argue or put
your mindset into a spin. It’s your site, your business and your money. Spend
your time and money any way you feel is best for you and guess what? You’re
doing the right thing --- for you anyway.
For me, I’ve found it exponentially less expensive to
increase conversions IF you can afford it. Once you know you can convert, THEN
spend money on generating more traffic. If you go about it that way, you should
actually have revenue to invest generated from your efforts instead of stolen
from your mom’s purse. (vague adolescent reference added so you don’t think I’m
talking about you 
. If you don’t have generated revenue from your efforts
then you lose more money with each passing day and more traffic is only going
to make you lose more money faster.
3 Second Back Button Boogie
Defined
When an internet user elects to click
a link from a source document, be it a search engine, an email, a blog or
forum, it is a conscious act. To use an index finger to push a mouse button
indicates a response to an emotional stimulus. It indicates the expectation of
finding data related to that stimulus at the destination.
In other words, when someone clicks a
link they are expecting to find something that relates to the specific reason they
clicked the link in the first place.
When they reach you as a
destination, you have about 3 seconds to deliver EXACTLY what that user
expected to find or they will likely hit the back button and return to the
source document. Hence - the 3 second back button boogie.
So How Do I Stop the 3 Second Back Button Boogie?
The concept is simple, the application --- ahhhhh, not so
much.
If you are converting at 3% or less, you are going to
have an increasingly difficult time maintaining your margins for the long term
if that model depends on generating more and more traffic. I know, I know, we all read on seo frogs,
(forums and blogs), that so and so has been #1 for years or that the “other”
guy just doesn’t REALLY know seo. Well, I DO really know seo, (whatever that
is), and I also know that webmasters and programmers no longer rule the cyber
roost. The cowboy site jockeys of yesterday have traded in their undershorts
and bathrobes for Birkenstocks, (http://www.birkenstockusa.com/),
and their khaki colored cargo shorts while punching the clock at their 9 to 5
for the suits. As in all things media, eventually, marketing rules. Maybe that is as it should be. Whether it should or not, it does.
The web is getting more competitive every day and each
day we see it becoming a battleground with better trained, better equipped,
better financed warriors. AND, the more profit there is in your I-only-need-a-2%-conversion-rate-to-make-a-profit
web service, the more that targeted traffic is going to cost AND the cheaper
your corporate competitors are going to be selling the same goodie as you.
YIKES! Not a pretty picture huh?
So what are we to do? Hire the next SEO who talks about
metrics without telling you what to DO about them once you analyze them? Hire $500 an hour consultants to tell you to post
more on twitter? Give up and go back to environmental engineering?
HERE’S AN IDEA. WHY NOT
LEARN HOW TO INCREASE CONVERSIONS?
All is not gloom and doom. Yes it is going to get more
and more competitive and you are going to have to learn to figure your ROI to
know how far you want to go and in which direction, but it’s not that hard.
I know you don’t have to look very far on the net to find
articles and posts, (or if it is an seo community, childish name calling and circle
jerks of the textual persuasion), extolling the virtues of metrics and
analytics. AND they are virtuous indeed. The problem comes in when asking, “ok,
I see I have 9% of my hits coming from Zimbabwe, and 22% of those come in
between 1400 and 1700 hours, soooooo now what”? It’s the now what that doesn’t
get talked about too much.
Well, I’m going to talk about the now what. Figuring out
how to use ANY information you can get to increase conversions doesn’t have to
be that hard. It CAN be as hard, (and as in-depth and expensive), as you let it
be and the more you can afford the better, BUT you don’t have to be a MNC,(multi
national corporation), to be able to analyze data to develop a strategy and
then execute effectively. Worried about doing it right? Don’t worry,#1. You can’t
do it wrong because if you do, your numbers go down. #2. If your numbers go
down stop doing that
The great thing about the net is that those kind of
numbers used to cost a LOT of money thereby raising the cost of the service or
product being sold. Corporates still spend a GREAT deal of money on those kinds
of numbers, (but it is changing), which gives you at least a small advantage.
Now it is so cheap that any single mom sitting in her
underwear, (ummm, give me a minute here until I get this image out of my head),
at her computer can compete with all the money and power any corporate can
bring to bear when it comes to research, data organization and analytics within
her market. Again, the trick is what to do about the numbers you get.
You can trust me when I tell you, If I can do it, ANYBODY
can do it.
In my forthcoming blogstallments, I’ll tell you how I use
referrer based ad delivery, subliminal messaging, learning curves, superstition
and religion to increase conversions at a minimal cost and without needing
another four years of college.
Kem cho Y’all
(I’m an Okie learning to speak Gujarati)
MAJAMA
The
Guru
I’d like to leave you today with some wise words my
Mother told me as a young boy. I hope it serves you as well as it has served me
over the years.
Boy, if you don’t stop
flipping that gawddamn clicker I’m going to slap your ears off!