Secrets of Natural Search

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   But given the sheer number of pages involved — tens of thousands — it's crazy to think that you or anyone else will be able to hand tweak them for, at best, a handful of visitors each. Remember, this is the long tail we are talking about here, with diminishing returns and all. Your best bet, in classic direct marketing fashion, is to test, test, test optimization enhancements that scale across your Website (or through a proxy version of your site).

   For example, we recently tested the value of shortened, keyword URLs for a large home television shopping site through our GravityStream technology platform. (I won't bore you with the inner workings, but the methodology we use presents a search-optimized, proxy version of the Website as the merchant's “face” to the search engine world.)

   We developed a proxy algorithm to enhance some 600 URLs from a structure that, on the surface, appeared relatively search-friendly (www.domain.com/shop-134/fa/1585/hp!sf.htm) to a keyword URL that looks like: www.domain.com/fashion.htm.

   The result? Keeping in mind that Google PageRank is logarithmic, PageRank scores increased from PR0 to PR4, on average. The PageRank increase of four points translates into a page that is 10,000 times more important than what it was initially, which was supported by the 550% increase in click-through traffic to these pages after the test.

   Also in support of this data, 50% of the 600 enhanced URLs were featured in the top-100 performing pages, out of a total site size of roughly 500,000 URLs. Following the results of the test, we implemented similar enhancements across other sections of the site.

   Another common issue that plagues merchant natural search performance is the lack of searcher vocabulary present within the content or navigational links of their Websites. Implicit navigation is one area that retailers often miss out on when they consider enhancing their sites for searchers.

   For example, let's say your Website displays a “toys” heading in your left-hand navigation, followed by a list of the different kinds of toys you offer, including, “learning,” “musical” or “girls ages 5-7.” Because these navigation links are trusted by search engines to help determine what the pages are about, the pages have difficulty getting ranked for such general keywords.

   This means searchers will never find your “learning toys” page by searching for that phrase. When our clients face this issue, we recommend enhancing their left-hand navigation to be more explicit; include “learning toys” or “musical toys” in the links themselves.

   While cleaner URLs and explicit navigation are simple examples that make sense from a search engine perspective, even they have brand impacts that need to be weighed carefully before rolling out such a change across the site. It is important to employ a technology platform and an evaluation framework that enables you to approach experiments like these as business case tests.

3. VALUE (AND BUDGET) NATURAL SEARCH ADVERTISING PROPERLY

   Many merchants still think of SEO as a one-time project allowing them to fix the major issues and leave the rest. And after all, natural search traffic is free, right? But this is a short-sighted approach. Everything has a cost. Whether a merchant is hiring experts internally or externally, studies have shown that, in spite of the cost of this SEO advice, organizations typically lack the resources or expertise, encounter technical constraints, or do not budget enough to implement changes that enhance their sites.

   A Shop.org study finds that the average merchant spent in 2005 nearly $1 million on PPC vs. $120,000 on SEO. This illustrates an important point. For most merchants, there is not only a high additional organizational cost of ownership but a significant “missed opportunity” cost incurred in traditional SEO initiatives, as outlined above.

   Natural search is arguably the best source for profitable acquisition and new-to-file customers available. While the tactics are different, it is not so dissimilar from catalog marketing.

   Each query a searcher conducts is the equivalent of a free catalog mailed to them; each click-through to your site is equivalent to someone opening your catalog.

   How much should you budget for natural search advertising? Simple: If you spend $40 in customer acquisition cost, and your Website confidently converts 2% of visitors into customers, then you can spend roughly $0.80 per click ($40 × 2%) and still keep your CFO happy.

   But we still find savvy merchants budgeting a range of $0.15 - $0.30 per click for natural search traffic, depending on traffic volume and whether the phrases are company-brand terms or unbranded terms (unbranded terms are more valuable).

   While this can add up to a significant advertising cost, merchants are finding that the incremental top-line revenue alone often justifies the expense on an ROI basis, not to mention the new-to-file customers acquired. So think big.

	The keys to the organic kingdom

Search continues to grow more complex and competitive with new and different opportunities emerging almost daily. Why wait for your CEO to ask you these questions?

• What is our strategy for dealing with universal or personalized search?
• Don't we need to build a .mobi site for mobile searchers?
• Why aren't we using RSS to feed products or specials to bloggers?
• How can we convert more image search “voyeurs” into customers?
• What if we create a product-related YouTube clip supported by a blog strategy?
• Should we develop a Facebook app that provides search value?

By adopting smart metrics, an experimental attitude, coupled with an advertising platform that supports such decision-making, you can begin to properly test and measure such concepts. More important, you can properly manage the performance of your natural search channel. Without these critical tools, your brand faces the risk of being seriously left behind.

By treating natural search as an advertising channel, by applying classic direct marketing test frameworks to scalable site enhancements, and by properly budgeting for your site's natural search advertising, you too will maximize the reach of your brand and your sales online with natural search.

Brian Klais is executive vice president of search for Netconcepts (netconcepts.com), a Madison, WI-based SEO agency.