Chasing The Wrong Thing: Standing Up For PPC

I got a call today from someone who inquired about our SEO packages. Before he could commit to getting a solid solution he tried to defend his position on PPC and why it was "working". Now I got to tell you that this particular prospect was blowing $1000 bucks a month and getting a shoddy ROI.

Thats $12,000 a year out the window.

I must also add that this guy hadn't sold anything to date despite this hefty price tag. As if he was defending his actions he was trying to convince me that his PPC efforts were.... "pretty good" and that he may not even need organic SEO. I wasn't buying it.

WHAT ARE HITS?
I had to go over this twice today with two different people. But it basically breaks down like this. You may have 20,000 hits a day. At least, that is what your traffic counter claims right? Wrong. What you are REALLY looking at is a tab of how many elements were reviewed by a search engine spider. That means every graphic element is counted as a "hit". So if you got a gallery on one of your pages with 50 images - one visitor goes to your page and every one of those pictures will register as a "hit".

HITS = HOW IDIOTS TRACK TRAFFIC

So you can have 10,000 hits a day. Maybe what it really comes down to in most cases is 500 unique visitors are going through your web pages and not buying anything but looking for content. Each time the pages are opened the full graphic count registers as a large hit count. Sadly, this is how a lot of companies look at their web traffic. They just aren't in the know.

The Other Type of Traffic
Just because you are getting hits doesn't mean that the people who stumble onto your site, (in most cases - especially if you are using PPC tactics) are simply not qualified to be a customer. The trick to getting GOOD traffic is to make sure your web site pops up into the right corners of the web where your niche audiences are hanging out in. This could be a variety of areas but not limited to:

* WIKIS
* Directories
* Portals
* Regional Directories
* Review Sites
* Message Boards
* But More Importantly.... Good Use of PR.

Traffic is just traffic unless its singled out and has some directive. You need to have the appropriate type of people pop up on your site as they are more likely to buy something that you are selling. Keep in mind that if you ignore this fact you are really playing darts in the dark.

Posted by Cantu on Oct. 3, 2007 at 9:26 PM

MUST EVERYTHING BE A H5?

There is a GOOD CHANCE that you're killing yourself online. I just came back from a wild jaunt in the east coast in New York City, (you can read all about my recent adventures at the DigitalLife conference here.....).

I come back from a highly technical two weeks to find something very disturbing back on my home soil. Companies from all walks of life in Troy, Michigan have ZERO IDEAS on what it takes to make a page rank properly....

Most alarmingly......

* Keyword Density
* Meta Data
* Proper Copywriting Length

Sadly, a lot of sites that I come across even in the manufacturing realm INSIST on putting all the body copy into a - h5 -tag. That doesn't say much for the city of Metro Detroit. IN fact, it makes us look pretty shoddy when it comes to the nation at large. Especially after our recent embarrassment this past Monday with our National American status as a state.


** Worse, I have seen many manufacturing sites in the State of Michigan try to skate by with one or two sentences per page. Please take note that there is a direct number system when it comes to using the proper number of keywords per page. I am not saying this to be over the top or cruel but its a standard fact.

There are a lot of things you must put into your pages. I am not talking about FLASH and other outdated technologies. I am talking directly about the type of formating that gets your pages easily indexed online.

There is no reason that a company should have to pay 25k - 50k for some watered down "programming" or animation functionality or even java navigation, (Java is not visible to search engine spiders by the way).

But what do I know?

Maybe Michigan businesses like throwing their money out the window.

There is a reason why Michigan is in last place.

Ted Cantu posted this on October 2, 2007 at 8:58 PM