The Business of SEO

The Business of SEO Lisa Myers CEO, Verve Search #SESLondon @LisaDMyers

About Lisa Myers
11 years experience in Marketing, 6 in Search & Social
Speaker at Search Conferences Worldwide (SES, SMX, A4U etc)
Regular contributor to on and offline publications and author of several SEO Best Practise Guides including eConsultancy and B2B Marketing
Heavily involved in the global Search Community , founder of SEO-chicks.com and co-founder of European search blog StateofSearch
Awards
“ Search Personality of the Year ” UK Search Awards 2011 + “Best SEO Campaign” for her agency Verve Search
Management Today “ 35 women under 35 ” list 2009
“ Best Use of Technology woman under 30”
BlackBerry Woman & Technology Awards (2008)
“ B2B Marketing Newcomer of the Year” (2007)

Search is unique as a marketing discipline because its audience is already looking for what you are selling!

1 billion searches per day globally
74% of searches clicks on organic
Around 42% of searches click on the 1 st position of organic and 80% within the first 3 positions
Less than 1% click past the second page
@LisaDMyers

So why is it so hard to sell SEO?

Business of SEO Proposal/Pitching New Biz Client Retention Up-scaling } Business Development

Typical SEO Proposal Process
Client: I want to be number one for
“ IT solutions” and get lots of traffic
Agency: Sure, that will cost you £3k per month
@LisaDMyers

Typical questions asked
What industry? Give me a little background
What’s the website URL please
Your top 10 keywords
Your competitors
@LisaDMyers

6 Months Later
Client: “SEO is not working for us, goodbye!”
Agency: “Uhm, well you are number 1 and you
got the traffic!?!???”

The SEO industry’s biggest issue
= OUR PROPOSAL PROCESS!
Too many agencies take on client without really
understanding what they need, or if they should
do SEO at all!
@LisaDMyers

Sometimes saying no is as good for business as
saying yes!
Agency – Business/Client - Industry

SEO should not be JUST about rankings and
traffic, BUT conversions.
To be successful in SEO, you NEED to earn your
client money. Simples.
@LisaDMyers

How SEO ROI is being tracked WTF?

ROI Measurements of SEO
68% are using clicks / visitors
53% use position
42% (less than half!) use the number of sales
30% use the value of sales
Source: Econsultancy UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmarking Report 2011
@LisaDMyers

Understanding the business and its goals

Understanding your clients business
completely, not partly, but fully, is the
only way to earn them money!

The must ask questions
Market size & competition
Relevant keywords and current rankings
CURRENT conversion rates
Profit margins
Any plans to re-design
Would they spend money on conversion optimisation
How much is #1 rankings worth?
@LisaDMyers

Estimating Traffic Worth
You will need to know:
#1 What is a conversion worth? (lead or sale. For a bigger site this will be different depending on product etc)
# 2 Current rankings, traffic and revenue from organic (ideally analytics access)
# 3 Estimated Volume of keywords/traffic
@LisaDMyers

tools... +

To sell SEO it’s beneficial to THINK
like an SEO!

Keyword Categories & modifiers
Brand
Descriptive
Product/Service
Location
Verb and Adjectives (buy, cheap, affordable)
Top volume keywords (top 5 volume/targets)

Keyword Tagging for ROI estimation
Different keyword groups and modifiers are
likely to have different conversion rates.
Brand usually has a much higher conversion
rate than other keywords for example!
@LisaDMyers

using Linkdex

Need tagging slide
Keyword Tagging

Benchmarking Value of Rankings
Estimated volume (Google AdWords)
Current rank (you and competitors)
Traffic (link Analytics to get actual traffic received)
Keyword 1 Keyword 2 Client Competitor 1 Competitor 2 @LisaDMyers

What is the higher ranking worth? #1 #2 #3 Currently client is ranking #3 generates an estimate of 1,282 visits and if they were going to buy this traffic it would have cost them £6,360 If they go from 3 rd to 1 st position the revenue generated from these 2 keywords alone is likely to increase by 390% Client Competitor 1 Competitor 2

Spotting the SEOpportunities
How difficult will it be to achieve first position?
The difference between you and your
competitors; actual SEO part of the proposal
@LisaDMyers

To CLOSE the deal you have to
think like the person with the wallet..
@LisaDMyers

Thank You! Email: [email_address] Web: www.vervesearch.com www.stateofsearch.com www.seo-chicks.com @LisaDMyers

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The Business of SEO

by Lisa Myers on Feb 22, 2012

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The Business of SEO — Presentation Transcript