Well, Sam Swenson at Blueline (now co-founder of Tricycle) never finished his blog about how much a website costs.  I am really disappointed about that because I really want to know :-).   I thought I would do my part in cutting through the Internet fog and give you a run-down of how much Internet marketing should cost.

Guess what?!  It really isn’t going to be that conclusive, because, as you heard Sam say regarding websites, “it depends.”

Here is what I can do to help though.  The type of marketing you do will make the difference.  Most common is search marketing, which consists of paid search marketing and organic search engine optimization.  I can’t really help you decipher what you will pay, but more how you will pay, and how to evaluate “which costs more.”

I recommend reading my really confusing look at paid search marketing to begin with :-).

Next, take a crash course on the benefits of fixed vs. variable cost structures — my very short tutorial is as follows:  Fixed costs require greater risk, but after break-even have higher returns, whereas, variable costs are easier to plan for but will reduce your leverage.

Okay, so what does that have to do with search marketing?  Well, organic optimization is usually a fair chunk of change (say $3-10,000), upfront or over a specified time period.  It takes on more of a fixed cost structure.  You pay a fee and then your watch for your ROI.  Every dollar you make in product margin from organic search efforts is put toward breaking even, after you break even, every dollar you make in product margin goes in your pocket (simplified…).

Paid search marketing takes on a variable cost structure where you are paying per click, per purchase, or per conversion, etc.  Under this model you will pay some of your product margin every time you convert a lead.  A lot of times there is some sort of fixed monthly cost for paid search too, but you can divide that out into the field and treat it as a variable cost if you like (doesn’t change analysis a whole lot unless management fees are higher than your ad spend).

In conclusion, if you have a high risk tolerance and you like the idea of reaping rewards in the future for your efforts today organic is a good choice.  If you are risk averse and you want to match your costs to your revenues paid search will suit you well.  This analysis, in its simple version, ignores things like traffic quality; organic search traffic tends to be more prepared to convert.  In most cases, you will want to use a little of both to “hedge” your bet :-).

I keep getting interrupted before I can get this really important note out:

Tanya Vaughan reported on her visit to PubCon this year.  Since I mentioned it earlier, I thought you might enjoy the other half of the story.

I haven’t heard of anyone else attending (from around town anyway); we would all love to hear if you attended any of the “big” conferences this year and what you thought….

As for people outside of Boise, here are two additional reports on PubCon:

• Matt Cutts – Keynote Speaker, Google Guy, and a presence inseparable from search engine optimization
• Rand Fishkin – SEOMoz, Brilliant Search Guy, and links to lots of cool PubCon resources

Not a comprehensive list by any stretch, but these are the “better” of the MANY I read so you won’t have to.

Oh, Merry Christmas!

Over the last few weeks I have had some interesting discussions with several people about the “what really works” for optimizing websites.  Of course, there are as many opinions on the subject as there are people.  The funny thing is that in all of the confusion there are some common themes. 

Tanya Vaughn may be one of the most practiced SEO professionals in the Treasure Valley, and in a short discussion on the topic she admitted a little frustration about hearing the same old stuff at the various conferences she attends.  Shortly after we chatted she posted about which upcoming event to attend.  Now, while I sympathize with her frustration, here are two possible reasons I think that may cause the “same old stuff” problem (very conflicting reasons): (more…)

A year ago the search marketing space in Boise wasn’t extremely crowded. In fact, when Marc and I first embarked on our venture (2005) I think there was basically nobody in the space. Well, over the last few months I have met several people in the industry that are specifically “search marketers.” Granted, some of the people reading this are saying, “Well, I have been doing search marketing in Boise for years.” And, they probably have. I think there are few things at play here…

First, have you ever noticed how when you buy a car all of a sudden you see the same make and model all over the place. I bought a Chevy S-10 Blazer when I was in school, and the next thing I knew they were the most popular car on the street. Was it because I was so cool everyone wanted to be like me? No, I was just more aware. So, I freely admit that is one possible reason why there seem to be more search marketers in Boise than there used to be. (more…)

We will be posting more about paid search marketing, so I will keep this fairly brief and high-level (again, just giving an overview of the website optimization space). 

Paid search, strictly speaking, is simply paying to have text advertisements appear on search results pages.  Now, not surprisingly, there is a lot more to it than that.  For example, the major search engines have extensive “content networks,” which means your ad can show up on websites.  And, you can create image ads and video ads in addition to the classic text ads.  The key, regardless of how sophisticated you want to get with your paid campaigns, is to keep your message consistent and relevant.

Website optimization has to extend to the ads your marketing and design team puts out because if they are saying one thing and the website is saying another you could have a serious image problem.  Additionally, the search engines reward consistent themes from keywords, through ads, and on to your website.  A well structured paid search campaign will have lower cost-per-click and higher conversion rates.  Typically, with any website optimization effort you will need to extend beyond the website and look at the message in your ads and on referring sites.

You will be able to track the success of message alignment via your web analytics solution.  A measurement of single-page accesses will start to give you a feel (although it is not a perfect measurement) of the effects.  Also, the data you collect from your paid search efforts will give you a little glimpse at the “why” people visit your site, as opposed to just knowing that they do. 

Here is what I mean:  The keywords your visitors search for represent questions, or needs, they have.  You can test key terms with paid search that will give you insight to their questions, which you will not get via organic search.  Also, you will get a better feel for search volumes by looking at paid search impressions.  See, now you are starting to understand your web visitors a little better.

My philosophy is that paid search marketing, even if you are not interested in the pure advertising part of it, is a relatively inexpensive way to conduct some market research.  In terms of website optimization, the critical role of paid search marketing can totally ignore the advertising function, if it makes sense to do so.

There is a difference between search engine optimization and web site optimization. Sometimes they even conflict. For example, a page with optimal keyword density for search findability may be very clunky and annoying for your website visitors.  In many cases, getting more traffic with lower conversion rates may not be a good strategy (sometimes it is).

Now, those of you who know something about SEO are probably cringing at “keyword density,” considering it is a minor factor, but it is a factor and every little bit helps.

The technical structure of your site is the minimum bar for search optimization. In other words, if it doesn’t meet certain standards then it will automatically decrease your rankings. For example, if you have a Flash Introduction page for your web site and you have not done anything to “help” the search engines through that page it could be the only page that gets indexed. And, worse than that, there is no crawlable content on the page! The ill effects go beyond just search though, the page may not be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and you may not be creating the “user experience” you thought you were. This is not to say you shouldn’t have the fancy flash intro page; just be careful how you do it.

One other example where SEO and web optimization will intersect (or diverge) is the messaging of your campaigns. It is very important that you treat your targeted web searches as questions. If you want to rank high on Swiss Bank Accounts because it gets searched more frequently than Idaho Bank Accounts you can create keyword targeted content and for the sake of argument, lets say you do rank well. That is a fantastic SEO achievement, but will do little for website optimization.  Website optimization is for people not for search engines.

A good website optimization effort will keep things in balance. You need high search rankings, you need fancy web programming, you need a functional web site, you need a pretty web page, and web site optimization is focused on getting all of those elements in the right amounts.

Marketing, as it relates to web optimization, is Valitics’ area of expertise. That being said, Marc and I could write a book on the subject, however, I will keep this blog post short. There will certainly be plenty more to come in future posts.

The primary point I want to address in this broad overview we are walking through is that your message has to be consistent from the initial “touch” to the customer satisfaction follow-up. This principle embodies many of the elements discussed in the other disciplines related to website optimization. Here is an example:

Let’s say you meet a potential client at a leads group. They immediately get an impression of you from your conversation, they have expectations. One of two things will happen when they visit the website on your perfectly designed business card — it will either validate their expectations or it will not. A general measure of that will be your entrance page bounce rate (not super scientific, just a question of did the visitor find what they were looking for). I am not claiming that it is a perfect measure, but coupled with additional measures can give you some insight to your “wow factor” as Marc likes to call it.

The same process will occur if visitors come from your paid search campaigns, organic search results, or referring websites. Make sure your message is consistent whenever possible, and you will see increased results from your web marketing efforts. One point to consider is that you need to know your value proposition prior to creating ads and web pages.