In 2012, consumers looking for information on a product, service, business, or person will:
a. Open the Yellow Pages.
b. Consult the local newspaper.
c. Ask an expert.
d. Google it.
e. I’m confused; this must be a trick question.
Let’s assume that you answered correctly by selecting “d”. Search engine traffic is vital, but not in the same way as it was 5 years ago. Today, search engine results are an aggregate of social posts, blogs, videos, web sites, shopping sites, images and audio, and paid advertisements. The job of SEO, SMO, and PPC is to create web site traffic from each of these mediums.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Even if you’ve never thought about search engines before, statistics illustrate how important it is for your site to be listed in them. But being listed isn’t enough; you also need to achieve a high ranking in the search results to benefit from the considerable amount of traffic they can send to your site.
Have you ever wondered why some sites turn up at the top of a search result while others are buried 10, 20 or 100 pages down? It is because some sites are not search engine friendly. SEO is an effective strategy that results in competitive rankings for your site – leading to increased targeted traffic.
SMO (Social Media Optimization)
SMO involves promoting your web site content across a variety of social platforms, blog sites, directory sites, etc. SMO is a broad-spectrum approach, and we recommend beginning with a 30-day social analysis that will promote your brand on numerous social sites and then provide a results analysis of which sites were most effective. Clients typically experience thousands of unique visitors within this 30-day period.
Consider this Google Analytics report showing traffic spikes within a 30-day period as a result of a Yovia analysis:
As a result of this 30-day analysis, we can provide real-time data on how best to optimize your content and how to get successful results. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of the equation and makes for relatively comfortable decision-making.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
PPC is paid advertisements on Google, Yahoo, Bing. We also run PPC campaigns on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social sites. PPC is a great way to gain immediate web traffic. Whereas SEO and SMO have an inherent “ramp-up” period of 6-9 months, PPC is relatively immediate- 30-90 days. PPC can be targeted by demographics AND by geography. So PPC works very well as a local strategy, whereas SEO and SMO tend to be more far-reaching.
Consider the below screenshot from monthly pay-per-click reports we deliver to our clients:
Or this report from a Facebook ad campaign:
Again, the job of SEO, SMO, and PPC is create new visitors to your web site. We can help you make sure that your web site is doing a good job of converting those visits to phone calls, email, or foot traffic. As some of the examples above demonstrate, we can also track all phone calls and emails and provide regular monthly reporting so that there is no doubt of the ROI.