Re: Search engine ROI

From: Miki Dzugan <mdzugan_at_markneting.com>
Date: Tue 15 May 2001 11:30:27 -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.

> What would be a good ROI for click throughs from search
> engine optimization?

> Am I looking at the wrong information for ROI?
> Should I be spending my marketing dollars on something
> else?

Without knowing what your product and target market are,
it is impossible to answer your questions definitively.
But I can give you some generalized information about the
effectiveness of search engine optimization.

If your product is in a highly competitive area, such as
music CDs, it takes a lot of work to get your site to come
up at the top of your category and the effort will be
continuous, because other sites in your category are all
trying to get the top spots. Search engine optimization
in that situation may not be very cost effective for you.

In this kind of situation, we do two things for our
clients: We find a number of less popular search terms that
they can own for a long time and optimize on those; We use
other off line and online marketing tools.

For many of our clients, search engine optimization is the
most cost effective promotion that we have for them. An
example is a manufacturer of temperature alarms to protect
property from winter freeze up while the owner is away.
In this case terms like freeze alarm, temperature
monitoring, etc. are not cost prohibitive in terms of
effort to achieve and maintain.

The value in search engine positions that are sustainable
is that they work over time. It takes about three months
before your placement efforts are really producing results.
Once effective placement is achieved it continues to produce,
month after month, for years. That's all free traffic!

Give your SEO contract its full six months before you try
to calculate its ROI and feel lucky that you were able to
find someone who would guarantee their work.

As for your question about whether you should be spending
your marketing dollars on something else, again, it depends
completely upon your product and market. We have no clients
who depend on search engine placement alone for their
traffic. Most have some other kind of online and/or off
line promotion as well.

Hope this helps.

--
Miki Dzugan
MARKnETING
Integrating the 'net into your marketing.
http://www.markneting.com
651-454-5323



Received on Tue May 15 2001 - 11:30:27 CDT