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The Battle Between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion: Who Wins?
Many companies have worked with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms or have hired in-house resources to perform Search Engine Optimization. They have improved their organic traffic and may even find themselves within the top results of the search engines for their primary keywords. They are concerned that if they make changes to their websites with intentions of improving their conversion rate, increasing sales or leads, that they will negatively affect their organic traffic and search engine rankings.This is a concern for many companies who have entered into internet marketing and realize the need to continue to improve their online performance.
Of course, it is very important to get great search engine rankings and high organic traffic. Most of the companies who enjoy high organic search engine rankings, unfortunately have very low conversion rates; usually less than 2%.
The real problem lies in the fact that most companies will consider optimization of their website a failure if their traffic decreases or their search engine rankings drop. (You can tell a lot about a company by the metrics they prize.) However, if ranking is more important than sales, we are dealing with an Ego issue. I mean, would you rather have a #1 ranking, with 100,000 visitors and zero sales or would you rather have one visitor and one sale?
The online marketing industry has been in a Search Engine Optimization mind-frame for the past decade. Many companies are so proud of their high search engine rankings, yet they know very little about their analytics and the value that they can get from finding out how their visitors are interacting with their sites. Very few companies even see a problem with their online performance because they’ve worked so hard to get ranked highly on search engines.
But traffic cost inflation is catching up with them quickly.
Do you think it would be a failure if we implemented conversion and persuasion optimization on a client’s website–to increase their overall conversion rate–and their traffic decreased as a result of this, BUT their sales went up?
If conversion and persuasion recommendations are implemented according to the stumbling blocks we’ve come across during an analysis of a web site, the conversion rate will go up (read: sales and/or leads will increase). Or is it better to have a conversion funnel that is just a leaky bucket?
On the flip side, although unlikely, it’s possible that during this optimization process that traffic may decrease because the site is only receiving relevant and highly targeted traffic.
- Do you think it’s a failure to remove those visitors who were coming to a web site by accident?
- Do you think it’s a failure to speak more effectively to only visitors who are coming to a site and have a direct interest in what the website offers?
That being said, it isn’t generally the case that traffic will decrease or organic search engine rankings will fall once you’ve focused on optimizing for conversion & persuasion, and not just search. A company optimizing their site may be removing a bulk of non relevant visitors, but they will also more effectively increase targeted visitors.
Search engine food is really no different than human food. Search Engines provide relevant information to the searcher. By planning your content using the Persuasion Architecture™ framework, you are creating a sales process with content that is completely and solely relevant to the visitor.
SEO focuses on knowing what keywords people are searching and creating content that uses these keywords effectively by interlinking relevant content to gain the interest of search engine spiders. Conversion & persuasion optimization tells us not only what people are searching for in the search engines but it also examines previously known and unknown variations of these keywords according to the questions people are asking at different stages of their buying process–and how they shop differently according to their personality types. So, with conversion & persuasion optimization, relevant keywords are not only used within the content, but with the site’s entire linking strategy. The site and its click-paths are thus planned out according to how the visitor is searching for and interacting with information while shopping or browsing online.
When the visitor lands on a page after clicking on a highly ranked search engine result, they will not get stuck at this page that’s been optimized with Persuasion Architecture™. This is why conversion & persuasion optimization with Persuasion Architecture™ is more than just a tool for increasing revenue and/or leads; it should be viewed as the most effective Search Engine Optimization tool around!
The formula to get better organic traffic is to simply answer the specific questions your visitors have throughout the content on your site. Don’t worry about the algorithms! The search engines are constantly improving, especially in light of some of the personalization techniques taking hold, the ways in which they’re feeding searchers with highly relevant/targeted information.
Do you want to keep chasing algorithms or focus on delighting your customers with the best content and buying experience the deserve?
About the author
Melissa is a Senior Persuasion Analyst at FutureNow.
More articles from Melissa Burdon
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
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March 13th, 2007
10:54 am
[...] GrokDotCom: The Battle Between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion: Who Wins? “The real problem lies in the fact that most companies will consider optimization of their web site a failure if their traffic decreases or their search engine rankings drop. You can tell a lot about a company my the metrics they prize. If ranking is more important than sales; then we are dealing with an Ego issue. I mean would you rather have a #1 ranking, 100,000 visitors and zero sales or would you rather have 1 visitor and 1 sale.” [...]
March 13th, 2007
4:47 pm
Is Search Rankings more important than Conversions?…
GrokDotCom's Melissa Burdon posted on a familiar subject, the dichotomy of Traffic vs. Sales in The Battle Between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion: Who Wins? According to Melissa:"….Most of the companies who enjoy high o…
March 14th, 2007
2:55 pm
What’s the Real Goal of Search Marketing?…
Great post by Melissa Burdon at grokdotcom on the real goal of search marketing—conversions. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know how much I agree…….
March 14th, 2007
8:04 pm
[...] FutureNow's Melissa Burdon wrote an outstanding article at GrokDotCom.com titled, "The Battle Between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion: Who Wins?" It was good reading her post because it touches on what many online business owners believe, namely that the key to their success is more traffic. [...]
March 15th, 2007
3:16 am
This is exactly what I feel the situation is. A divide between marketer and designers, with no real blend in between. But, most importantly, it’s not a tough one to crack. The figures speak for themselves.
August 6th, 2007
10:22 pm
[...] A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic search results to pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and, most importantly, improving a site’s conversion rate. [...]
August 27th, 2007
3:26 pm
Great article you have here! Hopefully everyone would realize the traffic without sales is totally useless.
May 8th, 2008
5:45 am
Great post by Melissa Burdon at grokdotcom on the real goal of search marketing—conversions. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know how much I agree…….
June 25th, 2008
2:17 pm
The Battle Between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion: Who Wins?…
Many companies have worked with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms or have hired in-house resources to perform Search Engine Optimization. They have improved their organic traffic and may even find themselves within the top results of the search en…
August 4th, 2008
1:42 pm
Great post! For me, traffic first at least up to a certain level, before optimizing for conversion. After all, no one can test without traffic. But wasting time, energy and money on traffic without optimizing conversion can seriously hurt the bottom line.
November 27th, 2008
2:13 am
I have found that even if your site is optimized for certain keywords and searches find your site via those keywords, your site may not contain what they envisioned when they did the search. 100 people may use the same keyword in their searches but only 1 or 2 may find your site relevant to what they were looking for. That is why optimization is so hard. It takes time and patience.
March 8th, 2009
6:27 am
[...] Sometimes, websites seem to be doing everything right, but the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) just aren’t as high as everyone expects. Their sites are functional, accessible, usable, and intuitive. Their look and feel is credible, and their content is high quality. So why do their visitors not behave as we expect? Why do well-planned and well-executed scenarios (e.g. PPC ad, to landing page, to lead generating form, to thank you page) not always convert? [...]
May 4th, 2009
8:55 pm
[...] Burdon (March 13, 2007). “The Battle Between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion: Who Wins?”. Grok.com. [...]
May 14th, 2009
2:28 pm
Came here from Wiki Search Engine Optimization article’s to find your SEO Conversion post. Its helpful for us. Thanks.
June 13th, 2009
2:54 pm
The main aim of SEO is conversion. The problem comes as whom site are you optimizing? Does the client believes in more traffic or more conversion? I agree that you can optimize for conversion yet you get more traffic. Targeted traffic is what to focus for.
August 8th, 2009
10:55 am
Most people think that more traffic means more sales but i have saw with my own eyes that untargeted traffic is almost useless.
August 12th, 2009
9:48 am
Great article. In my experience, I have seen the same thing in regards to rankings/traffic and conversions. We can drive literally 2X as much traffic from organic search on the very same keywords, but get half the conversions as we do from paid search. I think that PPC is more controlled and b/c of the AD text you can just get a much more targeted visitor and thus conversion. Of course I am always recommending SEO and PPC to clients because of the obvious pros and cons of each. I’m wondering about
September 9th, 2009
11:17 pm
i liked reading about traffic cost inflation and overall this post is pointed on seo….
October 22nd, 2009
2:05 am
As I was reading this post I kept thinking of the phrase “form over substance.” In other words having traffic numbers that “look” good (lots of traffic) instead of number that deliver sales (substance). In the end (or is it the beginning?) it comes down to what the real goal is Traffic or Conversions/Sales.
November 3rd, 2009
12:09 am
Since Search Engine Optimization is so important, i think SEO will win
November 8th, 2009
10:50 am
A good seo campaign is crucial to success, but a good conversion is important as well. The nich also …
December 23rd, 2009
5:53 pm
I agree with you.First i care for my visitors and later the search engine.My primary goal is to retain the visitors and the secondary goal is to get new visitors through search engines.
December 24th, 2009
7:54 am
It really depends. If you are expert at SEO and have significant experience of courses SEO going to win. so there is no one rulle to follow.
December 30th, 2009
8:58 pm
Thank you for fighting captioned article. Very useful.
January 14th, 2010
2:40 am
A good seo campaign is crucial to success, but a good conversion is important as well. The nich also …
January 15th, 2010
3:35 am
Great post by Author. The real goal of search marketing—conversions. If you have loads of traffic from SEO it doesn’t mean good CTR. So conversation matters but don’t for get about traffic.
January 15th, 2010
9:18 am
Great information thanks for share with us.
January 15th, 2010
9:19 am
Nice article. Thank you very much!
January 19th, 2010
2:31 pm
[...] Battle Between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion: Who Wins?". Grok.com. http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/03/13/the…. Retrieved 2007-05-09. ^ Andy Greenberg (April 30, 2007). "Condemned To Google [...]
January 21st, 2010
6:21 am
Great article !!
February 2nd, 2010
12:03 am
Yes now SEO farms are getting tough competitions to rank their client’s site in number one or in 1st page of search engines.But accordingly search engine algorithm are also changing continuously,so who update with these issue will serve better to his client.
February 2nd, 2010
12:39 pm
good.It’s seo article for me.
Thank you.
February 6th, 2010
7:07 am
Interesting article. I’ve always thought that having a high search engine ranking is equivalent to high sales. Of course, high conversion would only come if your traffic finds what they’re looking for and if you get the right traffic in the first place.
February 7th, 2010
6:01 pm
Yeah! I strongly agree with this one. Online business opted to do search engine optimization, since they consider traffic as lifeblood of their business. In that way if proper optimization will be done, traffic will be followed. If that happen it will be a great way to have more profits.
February 8th, 2010
4:03 am
Interesting article i’m agree with this one.