Monthly Archives: January 2005

The 70/30 Rule of Search

First published on Jan 20, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In nature, there are the Fibonacci numbers. This sequence (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13…) and the Golden ratio (Phi or 1.618034) derived from it, occur with amazing frequency and can be found in flowers, the shells of mollusks, leaf arrangements, and even the proportions of the human body. I’m beginning to believe that search marketing has its own naturally reoccurring ratio, and I’ve dubbed it the 70/30 Rule.

I can’t help thinking that many of us are missing the boat when it comes to search marketing. Perhaps not the whole boat, but 70 percent of it. Every day, new research is coming out which points to there being a vast, untapped potential in search. We’ve picked the low hanging fruit, but there’s a whole tree full of rich marketing results that we have to reach a little further for. And when analysts like Safa Rashtchy and the gang at JupiterMedia point to doubling, tripling, and quadrupling revenues from search over the next five years, it’s based on assumptions that marketers will figure out ways to better tap into the full potential of search.

As I write, I know there’s a posse of irate search marketers who are whispering, “How dare he refute our expertise in this area! Low hanging fruit, indeed. The nerve!” As back up to my observation, here are just three examples that come to mind of where the 70/30 rule seems to apply.

Seventy percent organic 30 percent sponsored A little while back I was presenting a session at Search Engine Strategies about balancing organic and paid search strategies. I had a typical search results page from Google up on the screen. I asked the audience which section of the page they normally look at first. Almost every hand in the audience went up when I got to the top organic results. This was no great surprise. From our research into search user behavior, I was pretty sure this would be the case.

Then I asked who in the audience dedicated at least 30 percent of their search marketing budget to organic optimization. Very few hands went up, probably less than 3 percent of the audience.

Does anybody else see the disconnect here? This is not a new message. Study after study has shown that about 70 percent of all search engine clicks happen on the organic results. Yet sponsored search continues to take the spotlight and the lion’s share of the budget, while for many, organic optimization seems stuck as a little understood and even less trusted tactic only fully utilized by online casinos and porn merchants.

Companies using search have to understand their consumers are going to look and click on organic listings more often than sponsored, and you can’t just ignore the fact. Yes it’s harder, yes it’s not guaranteed, and yes it may require some changes to your site, but 7 out of 10 people can’t be wrong!

Seventy percent researchers 30 percent purchasers When is a consumer likely to use a search engine? When they’re ready to buy? No! It’s when they’re researching the buy. And most likely, they’re very high in the consideration phase, just checking out the competitive landscape. This varies with the type of purchase, but usually the search sweet spot is for a product where there is little familiarity, where there is a significant amount of consumer research and consideration, and where there is a lead time of a month or two before the purchase. This is not true all the time, but it is true about… well, look at that… 70 percent of the time!

Driving consumers to a hard purchase conversion and leaving them without another option is not going to be a successful online tactic for the majority of your consumers. We have to understand the mindset of the consumer when they’re likely to use a search engine. If you always aim for the easy conversion, or the low hanging fruit, you’re probably missing 70 percent or more of your market. Take some time to gain a better understanding of the consumer and what they’re looking for. Adjust your search marketing strategies accordingly. Extend your reach beyond the low hanging fruit.

Seventy percent by luck, 30 percent by design Recently, JupiterMedia released findings of an extensive survey with search marketers. In it, they found that only about 25 percent (close enough to 30 for me) of the respondents actively used landing pages and other on-site tactics to increase conversion rates.

The majority of a search marketer’s time is spent in trying to influence position on the search engine results page. This is true whether you’re working on the sponsored side or the organic one. As marketers try to squeeze more return from their marketing investment, there are three points at which they can influence the ROI equation.

They can reduce the investment by intensive bid management or tapping into the organic potential of search. They can increase impressions and click-throughs by extending the keyword basket or improving their position on the page. And finally, they can increase the conversion rate on the site by making sure the search visitor finds what they were looking for and that an appropriate conversion path is present.

It’s the last of these three that offers the marketer the greatest degree of control, yet it’s the one most often overlooked. Usually, we have complete control over what happens on our own site. But often, we have never really asked our visitors what they’re looking for. We haven’t tapped into the existing (and extensive) body of knowledge on usability design when it comes to Web sites. This is one area that could have huge payoff not just in search, but also in all areas of online marketing.

Fibonacci redux For each of the three examples of the 70/30 Rule I’ve given, I know others exist. And I’m not sure that it’s wrong that marketers have previously gone for the obvious wins in search. But I worry about the lack of motivation to go after the wins that require more work.

We can’t move forward as an industry until we start doing the research required to better understand the 70 percent of the market we’re missing. The big winners in business have never been the companies that go for the easy wins. They’re the ones that figure out how to pick the fruit that’s just out of their competition’s reach.

Black vs White: SEM Soul Searching

First published on Jan 6, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

At the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago, there was a new addition to the session list: Black Versus White, And Lots of Gray! Danny Sullivan wanted to stage a showdown between known black hat SEO’s and those that have chosen to tread the purer path. Holding down the dark side was Todd Friesen and Greg Boser. The champions of the straight and narrow were Alan Perkins and Jill Whelan. Falling into the great gray in between was Mikkel deMib Svendson.

The Lighter Side of the Dark Side

The session had a somewhat tongue in cheek tone, but nevertheless, some serious issues that lie at the heart of organic search optimization were explored. Alan Perkins began to tackle the thorny issue of whether black hat SEO was even legal.

His reasoning was that manipulation of factors to increase rank for obviously commercial pages of questionable relevancy was in fact misleading presentation of advertising messages. There’s also the issue of whether hiding or presenting content specifically for search engines falls offside of the recently enacted accessibility legislation.

Todd and Greg countered with a plea for all search engine optimizers to come clean and admit we all manipulate search results (Greg believes SEM should stand for search engine manipulation); it’s just that some of us are more effective at it than others. They use tactics of varying degrees of aggressiveness, and only use the extreme black hat tactics in industries where it’s an absolute necessity to compete, such as online pharmaceuticals and gambling.

Greg made the excellent point that the most serious breach of ethics he’s run across in SEO are those companies that use black hat tactics but don’t disclose the fact to their clients. He insists on full and total approval of tactics by the client.

Was Sun Tzu a Black Hat?

Mikkel likened search marketing to warfare, citing Jay Conrad Levinson’s guerrilla approach, and said that you have to do whatever you have to do to win. Greg agreed, calling it a “full frontal assault” on the search engines. Alan Perkins found the warfare analogy unfortunate and distasteful, saying he didn’t believe that search marketing should be compared to war, because there are no winners in war.

As could be predicted going into such a heated topic, no one changed their minds, but I think we discovered a few more shades of gray between the two extremes. I suspect that was Danny’s intention in putting the session on the agenda. Somewhere between the blinding white of Alan’s world and the dark practicality of Todd and Greg’s, the real world of SEO exists. And as long as people continue to look for organic results, that world will continue to be colored in various shades of gray.

In fact, there is a somewhat symbiotic relationship between the two extremes in our industry. Many reputable companies that steer well clear of questionable practices look with fascination on the tactics employed by the true black hats. One cannot help but admire the sheer brilliance of the methodical attack on the algorithms of the search engines. And in those tactics, they hope to pick up the kernel of a strategy that can be pulled back and employed in a less aggressive manner for their clients. Even the search engines routinely plant informants at the shows at which the black hats tend to congregate to pick up intelligence on the latest tactics.

In the “Wish I Said” Category…

So, at the end of the day, there were no easy answers. But there were a couple of points made in my follow up conversations that I wish had come up in the session. One of the best points was made by my friend Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR.

The fact is that black hats will aggressively look for any hole, and they will attack that hole with everything at their disposal. This means that legitimate ways to gain search visibility are soon exploited by the black hats, forcing search engines in many cases to close down legitimate and useful opportunities for both users and advertisers.

We know that search marketing is a real estate game, and there’s nothing wrong with aggressively looking for new opportunities to gain territory on the page by exploring new strategies including shopping feeds and news engines. That’s just smart search marketing. But the line is crossed when the black hats aggressively subvert the rules and use those new channels to artificially build links or boost their visibility at the expense of the user experience.

And that brings me to my final point. I believe there is a place for guerrilla marketing, but I think Mikkel, Greg, and Todd missed an important point in using the all-out war analogy. Levinson’s intention was that the casualty would be the competition. When you attack the search engines, the casualties are numbered amongst the users of that engine. And those users are your target consumer. I somehow doubt that Mr. Levinson ever wanted you to launch a war on your customer.