HFTB Marketing Blog

Walk through your local grocery store’s produce section and one thing is clear – organic sells. In the last decade or so, the term organic has come to stand for products that are free of hormones, additives or preservatives that have in the past, made our food look better, grow bigger, or last longer.

image by Secret Tenerife

In short, organic is natural.

So why the move away from seemingly beneficial, man-made science?

The answer is perception. There is a perception that organic is necessarily better for you because it lacks unnatural influences.

I caught a Hubspot webinar this week that touched on the pros of organic. Of course, we’re talking about search at this point, not apples and oranges.

The subject of the webinar was managing a move away from Google PPC (pay per click) campaigns in favor of an organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. Organic, in the case of SEO, refers to the results that are listed on the left hand side of the search results pages (SRP) as opposed to those PPC results on the right.

The basic gist of the webinar was that organic results are, simply put, better than PPC results. To be fair, I imagine Hubspot would claim the timeframe makes a difference here – organic results requiring in almost all cases a longer term to show results.

But I think the idea of one type of traffic as better than the other is an oversimplification. And here’s why.

There is a perception that organic results are free. Once again, as with food, perception colors the organic discussion.

Organic search is anything but free. In fact, I would argue that organic results are often more expensive, at least in the short term, than are PPC results.

Organic results require Google to recognize your site, and more accurately your site content, as extremely relevant to your desired search terms (or keywords). What has to happen for this to occur? A lot of things.

First, you’re going to need relevant, targeted and keyword-rich content. Then you’re going to need highly ranked sites to link to yours. Next, you need to make sure you are putting out new content, still as relevant as the existing content, very frequently. And don’t forget about your on-page optimization.

So is it hopeless? Should you quit your organic efforts before you start? Not at all. These are important pieces to your overall SEO strategy. But recognize that organic is not free. And while it uses the term organic, it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily better than PPC campaigns at driving prospective customers to your site.

Instead, let’s look at PPC and organic SEO on a continuum. Some business objectives favor organic results, some favor PPC. But almost all can benefit from the right mix of the two. In other words, no need to cancel your Google account.

But what do we know about the differences between the two tactics?

Well, we know that for your organic rankings to pay off, you’re going to need to make a commitment, over time, to a substantial amount of work. For most businesses, that means dedicating an internal resource to managing your web efforts. And depending on the size of your company and your online goals, this can be a full-time job.

Not sounding so inexpensive, dare I say “organic,” any more.

PPC campaigns on the other hand, are less time intensive, but have a measurable price tag attached. That price tag, while ranging in relative cost from inexpensive to expensive depending on your industry, is very manageable. You control, to a great degree, how much you spend. And, as a result, you control how much traffic Google sends to your site. The trade-off is the time and effort of an internal resource for an added expense.

So on one hand we have organic results taking a long-term, dedicated effort by an internal person or persons. On the other, we have a fast and eminently manageable expense that drives traffic to your site right now. The key to a successful strategy is leveraging both in varying degrees.

And as such, I would argue that both should play an ongoing role in most companies’ online marketing efforts.

While both organic and PPC can be effective, know what you’re in for if you choose to focus exclusively on the former. There’s no free lunch after all… not even if it’s organic.

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Marketing, New Marketing, SEO digital marketing, New Marketing, new media strategy, Online marketing, optimize websites, organic search, PPC

Attended a great webinar put on by Hubspot this week.  Brent Leary, co-founder of CRM Essentials, presented on How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers.

You can find the video and slides for download here. Check it out!

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New Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Web Design Add new tag, blogging, content, customer relationships, digital marketing, New Marketing, Online marketing, Social Media, social media marketing

For some reason there is a pervasive belief that SEO is a process that can be applied to any website.  I have clients ask us to optimize websites that were written years ago without a thought about how they would be found, or more accurately, searched for on the Internet.

I guess this idea has been talked up by a lot of firms that are proponents of the coding side of the argument.  In other words, most optimization work takes place behind the curtain – a process that few would understand and is too high-level to be explained anyway.

This idea makes sense, in a self-perpetuating kind of way.  After all, if it is so difficult to figure out the inner workings of the Google algorithm, barriers to entry in the SEO space are high.  Effectively keeping those without genius IQs and degrees in Computer Engineering out of the business.

Of course, there are those (myself among them) that believe the barriers to SEO aren’t daunting at all.  In fact, they aren’t really even there, from a high-level coding and computer science perspective.

In my experience, the most effective optimizers are those with a compelling story to tell.  Simple as that.

Once again, we default back to the time-tested rule: content is king.

So if you are looking for search rankings and a robust presence on the Web, focus on what your customers want, need, and are likely to search for.  Then tell them your product story and how it satisfies their want, fulfills their need, and is the product they are searching for.

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SEO coding, content, optimize websites, search engine optimization, SEO

Why linking off your site is not always a bad thing

Photo by Clairity

Web traffic is precious and we have to make every effort to convert every visitor to a customer or client. I don’t disagree with this idea. In fact, I’ve probably said something similar to clients many times. The question is, how do we convert traffic to sales?

The conventional wisdom in Web design has always been to never allow visitors to navigate away from your site. Makes sense. We obviously don’t want to promote someone else’s products or services above our own. And if we direct visitors to other sites, isn’t that what we are doing?

Not necessarily.

At this point in the continued evolution of Web 2.0, most of us have heard the mantra “content is king.” Your visitors are on your site for a reason – they are looking for some value for themselves or their company. More likely a solution to some issue or problem.

Now, I know there are some sites out there that offer vast amounts of information on their particular product or service. Hundreds, even thousands of pages covering a wide range of topics.

My question is, does any one of those sites provide all the answers to all their visitors? With reasonable certainty I can answer no.

So going by the “content is king” mantra, why not direct your visitors to a site that can provide the value they are searching for? Why not become a resource rather than a dead end?

I would much rather link to a site that provides useful information to my visitors than force them back to their initial Google search. This is about becoming a resource and providing content (yes links to others’ content is still content) that provides value to your site visitors.

That having been said, there are good ways to provide links, and bad ways to provide links. Here are 5 tips to providing links as content on your site that won’t drive your competitors’ sales.

1.) Create a separate page for links

Links to other sites should be posted exclusively on a separate page. The idea is to provide the links to those that cannot find the content anywhere on your site. Not preempt someone from finding content on your site by directing them to another site.

Create a separate page with a title like “Links and Resources,” that has links listed by content type. You can even provide a one to two sentence description of the type of information the visitor can expect to find on the linked to site.

2.) Keep your Links page one or two levels down in your site architecture

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t want visitors leaving your site before they’ve had a chance to take a look at your content. The idea is to first direct them through your information. If they find the solution they are looking for, they should easily be able to contact you or purchase your product.

But if they don’t find the information on your site, the next step is to help them find useful information through your links.

This obviously means we don’t want to list links on your home or landing pages. In fact, links should ideally be located a couple of rungs down in your site architecture.

For example, if you provide interim executive level finance and accounting talent, you should make sure your visitors find your services or solutions page before they see your links page. If your visitor reads through your services and sees that you don’t place mid-level accounting staff, they should then be directed to your links page.

Linking to the Links page from a child page (one or two levels into your site architecture) will help ensure that visitors read through your content before moving on.

3.) Provide links to complimentary businesses or resources

While links to complimentary services, products or information reflect positively on your site, make sure you are not linking to sites that either offer a similar product or service or provide links to a competitor’s product or service.

An HR consultant might want to link to marketing or PR firms, accounting services, consulting services that fill gaps in their service offerings and HR industry associations.

It goes without saying, but links such as these are not likely to take business away from the originating site. But they can provide value to a Web visitor that might not need their HR services today – but might in the future.

Make a positive contribution to both your visitors experience and your brand image in the mind of a possible future client.

4.) Have links open in a new browser window when clicked

Your webmaster will be able to take care of this with no problem. Or you can simply add the following code to your links – target=”_blank”. Your links should then look like the below.

<a href=”www.sampleURL.com” target=”_blank”>

This code will open your links in a new browser window and keep your site up in its own window. When linking to outside sites you do not want the site to open in your site’s browser window.

5.) Ask for inbound links to your site from the sites you are linking to

Inbound links can be a great way to increase your search rankings. If you plan to link to other sites, contact the site owner and ask about a reciprocal linking agreement. Many businesses and site owners will be happy to reciprocate if you extend the offer.

Another benefit of linking relationships is that they create a network of preferred service providers that can be specific to a certain space or represent various industries. These referral networks allow you to leverage linking partner’s personal networks and vice versa.

But it’s not only the businesses in the network that benefit. Site visitors benefit from a network of reliable service providers as well.

A link to an outside site can be a powerful endorsement of the business. But make sure that you are only linking to sites that you trust to provide services or products that live up to your personal and professional standards. Directing a visitor to a site with sub-par performance can reflect poorly on you and your company.

* * * * *

Outbound links were once taboo in the world of Web design. But as the Web becomes more about finding information quickly and efficiently, links can provide access to content that no one site can.

Content is about sharing information that one party has or knows about, and the other party needs. So instead of being a dead-end for your site traffic that is looking for something that you don’t directly provide, why not share your expertise and help someone locate the site that does have the content?

When done the right way, linking off your site is not always a bad thing. And besides, we could all use a little more Web Karma.

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SEO, Web Design linking, linking strategy, links, site architecture, web content, Web Design