Comments on: When SEO Isn’t For Increasing Sales

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:26:22 +0000

Andy T I am curious, does the Toolbar PageRank of your home page make you money? I think we can agree the answer is no. What makes you sales is orders for waterproofing.

SEO consultants provide more than keyword optimization and content promotion, they also help setup analytics to measure what matters – sales.

By: Andy T

Andy T — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 06:04:16 +0000

I don’t know about other people how to do SEO on their company site. I just submitted my company site to local web directories [my company deal with local only - waterproofing contractor] and a few large search engine only. Now my company site got a PR2 in the recent Google page rank update. My blog got more links, still has a PR0.
Hiring a SEO firm to do the SEO for your company? I don’t know that worth it or not. Also, how far the page rank can go by using SEO firm compare to without using.

By: Eibhlin

Eibhlin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:47:37 +0000

Excellent Article – it highlights the issue of usability and visitors having to revert to search engines to navigate around sites. Sites should be created for users not organizations or sales departments. These considerations will ultimately save organisations money in the long term.

By: Elisha Terada

Elisha Terada — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:11:57 +0000

I previously had a blog that received most accesses from google search. So I was happy for a moment. But I soon realized that most customers do not come back. That said, focusing on content will help you drive more revenue than trying to sell unattractive contents.

http://www.marketingnavi.com

By: final seo

final seo — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:32:36 +0000

I agree about the stats and queries. Thats where the real research should be done.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:20:29 +0000

John, I think that evolution of SEO you speak of is true, especially with those web marketers that treat web site marketing as a process of creating and promoting content with strong attention to analytics.

As they research ways to expand reach online and truly analyze the needs and interactions of content with distinct audiences, the notion of optimizing specifically for customer support, news, sales or even advertising becomes more clear.

By: John Gillett

John Gillett — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:03:27 +0000

It seems that web SEO is a matter of evolution. That is, many web sites start as a single-page ad, then begin their evolution by applying some SEO principles to gain traffic, then they try to sell online, then they collect prospect info…It isn’t until the later stages of online evolution that web sites become aware of themselves and their potential to impact various stages of the buying cycle, participate in proactive PR, and provide information for journalists and others…

By: geetha

geetha — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:56:34 +0000

Thanks Lee for your valuable post.. Keep on doing more..

By: Andrew Shotland

Andrew Shotland — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:38:40 +0000

In total agreement Lee. A lot of clients start out sales obsessed because that’s what drives their planning. But once you start talking about the buying cycle and how SEO can help you engage with the customer before they actually are ready to buy, they start to drink the KoolAid.

By: W.M.Heus

W.M.Heus — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:55:15 +0000

Very interesting aspects, Lee and you are right, but for a lot of people incl. firms the dschungle of SEO is simply to big and the contious change of ,for example: Google`s politics, makes it difficult to be up-to-date and find the right decision at the right time

By: Wil Reynolds

Wil Reynolds — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:21:15 +0000

Lee, you bring up a great point – while I really like the fact that SEO (and web marketing in general) is such a trackable medium. I can still remember the first time I read that iProspect study (WhitePaper_2006_SearchEngineUserBehavior.pdf)

That said 36% of the browsing public believed that top rankings indicate a leadership position or top company in the field.