Re: Search engine ROI

From: Christopher Ulrich <culrich_at_cydian.com>
Date: Tue 15 May 2001 11:15:42 -0500

MICHELLE PELLETIER <michelle.pelletier_at_pikatech.com> WROTE:

>I would like to some feedback on search engine
>optimization ROI. We've commited to a six month contract
>for search engine optimization. We have not seen more
>than 1% ROI in Web site traffic increase and I'm not
>able to tell whether or not they are more qualified by
>other visitors pushed to our site via search engines.
>First, I found it extremely difficult to find a company
>that would provide a good guarantee for your significant
>investment bin their services. And now, the results are
>not that significant.

We've dealt with several optimization companies with
awful results. We even went to www.searchengineforums.com
and hired one of their "moderators" who is supposed to
be a guru. At what I couldn't guess.

The engines are hit and miss and the optimizers know it.
The way they make their $ is, in my opinion, the shot-gun
approach. They create a lot of sites and links and cross
their fingers. Sure, I could get you a good rank for
"purple polka-dot shoes", but how about "shoes" or
"discount shoes"?

That said, engine traffic, when you get it, can be
valuable. However, it even seems that the quality of
that traffic is falling. We've seen conversion rates
from engine traffic fall from 7-10% to 1-2% on most
websites. More casual surfers? People not buying?
Who knows.

If your terms are not too competitive (ie. expensive)
you should try the pay-per-click engines.

Check out: http://www.bidonclicks.com/
It is a pretty good site that lists a lot of pay-per-
click engines and, I believe, lets you do a search across
many simultaneously to let you know what you would pay,
per click, on each of those engines.

- Chris Ulrich



Received on Tue May 15 2001 - 11:15:42 CDT