Seth Godin is someone I greatly admire, so it was a bit troubling to see him take on the broad subject of How to Make Money with SEO in such a surface-level fashion. However, after a few emails, I feel pretty good that his intentions were solid, and that he's just presenting a viewpoint that many others have on the subject in an easy-to-parse fashion. While that's not necessarily bad, I'm notoriously against surface-level analysis of our beloved profession, so I figured I'd try to expand on Seth's assessment and give the subject a bit more thorough (though hopefully not less usable) treatment.
Seth's list of business strategies that can be accomplished with SEO:
- Get rankings on a very popular, highly competitive keyword that exposes new visitors to your website
- Get rankings for your branded search terms that bring traffic using the engines as a primarily navigational device
My slightly more comprehensive list would look a lot like this post - The 6 Goals of SEO: Choosing the Right Ones for Your Business. But I don't want to dive too deep. Let's stay high level and imagine it this way:
There are lots of ways to earn traffic on the web, but not all of them bring income. There are also lots of ways to earn money online, and nearly all of them intersect with traffic acquisition. Wherever these two collide, SEO can help out - either by directly sending conversion-likely visitors or influencing traffic that will eventually turn into revenue.
SEO helps in nearly every aspect of online business. From the buying cycle:
To the branding & public relations world:
To the social activities we perform on the web:
The Internet has changed the way the world functions - and this change is accelerating as Internet adoption and usage continue their meteoric rise. There are fewer and fewer commercial events occurring at either the macro or micro level of economic interaction that aren't influenced in both subtle and obvious ways by web search. And guess what? If humans use a search engine to influence their decisions, SEO is a marketing tactic businesses can apply to modify those behaviors in their favor.
The practice of search engine optimization may not be ubiquitous, yet, but it's only a matter of time. Either that, or some new technology will have to replace search and, in my opinion, we've not yet crested that horizon. So yeah, there's more than 2 ways to make money with SEO - in fact, the potential count is limited only by the number of ways there are to make money online.
p.s. Also see Aaron Wall's examination of Seth's post - Most SEO Strategies Are Not Focused on Hitting Home Runs - Seth left a good comment there, too.
p.p.s. For those of you who've been using Linkscape regularly, you may have noticed Sunday night's brief outage (which was fixed around noon on Monday). Apologies for the downtime - all is now back to normal (and we're on schedule for another fresh index update in a few weeks). For those seeking more timely updates, feel free to follow the @seomoz Twitter account, where we'll report on these incidents as they occur (and talk about other cool stuff going on here, too).
Hi Rand,
I like the way you presented your point with pictures and how to detailled the consumer behavior in 5 steps.
I usually talk and refer to this as keyword psychology and 3 steps:
The way you go more in detail by spliting in 5 groups definitely goes one step further and the illustration makes it all clear.
I have a tendency to try to explain everything by writing, I think I really should add more graphs, charts, and other medias, it really does helps a lot to understand.
I would add a fourth:
"Keywords for Support" - which is usually post purchase. Many of reviews searches that I have come across are done post purchase - and its funny, but people normally like to add their review to the most popular (hence highest SERPs ranking) sites.
Its important to either own those queires or atleast keep an eye on them.
That's an interesting one indeed Rishil!
I always focus my work for myself or others on preselling keywords, but never thought of keywords for support.
That first table is great.
I also think the Venn diagram illustrates an excellent point about increased traffic not always equating to actual ROI/conversion. I might even set them a bit farther apart, because I think we all know that making the traffic graph go up and to the right doesn't guarantee that the client is seeing increased conversion. If you drive traffic to a site that is poorly designed such that you see high bounce rates and lots of abandonment, the traffic itself is largely worthless (unless you're just looking for ad impressions).
To an extent I have to agree with Tony Win. This was an improperly titled post.
It doesn't explain ways to make money with SEO, as one might surmise, but rather provides some subjective commentary on potential search behavior.
Why subjective? I would be hard pressed to believe that the typical searcher does anything near this 5 stage search centered "buying cycle", especially considering that the vast majority of searchers clicks on one of the top 3 organic results for their search term.
Rather, I would suggest that the majority of searchers begins with a more targeted and often times geo specific long tail, depending on the intent and the product or service one might be seeking to purchase.
For example, if I were looking for "heirloom watches", I would more than likely begin by searching for that specific keyword, since it is a small item that is relatively easy to ship for low cost. Conversely, if I just planted Tiff 419 grass in my yard, I might search for a "McClane Rotary Mower Austin Texas", because it's something I would likely want to purchase locally due to it's size, weight and cost of shipping.
In any case, none of this has anything to do with different ways to make money wth SEO - although that would make for a very good post.
Sean (and Tony) - I know what you mean, but after I read my old post on this topic - https://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-6-goals-of-seo-choosing-the-right-ones-for-your-business - which I linked to above, I didn't want to simply re-hash that. I also wanted something more simple in concept and easy to wrap one's head around - rather than diving into details. I think Seth always does a great job of that, and maybe I need to work harder on my more surface-level posts.
Thanks for the feedback.
Great post Rand,
Love the diagrams, colours and simplicity....also loving the new look and feel....much improved...
Shahid....
I think we miss a point here: that these 5 steps (or 3 or whatever) dont necessarily happen online or in a nice ordered way, they dont happen in exact orders i.e. a users wont search and click on 5 text ads, getting more specifc each time and then buy.
In your example Sean, your mclane rotary mower austin texas is specifc and further down the search cycle because you already have previous knowledge from offline/other research, so you can go straight to this specific a level of keyword.
So while it may look like your only doing 1 step, Id bet good money youve done the other 4 steps in a more subconscious or that general life experience, offline advertising etc has provided the cycle information you need.
So not everyone will proceed along the 5 (or 3 or whatever) cycle path but its those who do that are the most open to being persuaded, because they initialy know the least and rely the most on online information presented to them.
To me, this makes the online 5'rs very valuable traffic.
To be honest, I am dissappointed.
I found this post is too general. Lots of cool graphics and tables, all for the sake of drawing a single conclusion "there's more than 2 ways to make money with SEO"?
When I first read the title, I thought I will see some revelations on the newest trends of getting targetted traffic with SEO (we all know that traffic is 99% of success), but instead I saw rather general discourse on finding and refining search terms in addition to hints on how to entice Rand to attend someone's SEO conference.
You could be more specific and share some real practical advice(s), even if not as grandiose as the theoretical discussion you presented. That would indeed be much more helpful.
Good post rand... I also had a few back n forth emails with him about that blog post. It's nice to see he takes the time to respond to emails. I just felt like he left out the long-tail aspect of SEO. He was correct to say that paying to rank in the top results for plumbing isn't worth it but there are many many other phrases they could target. Wether it's geographical or just a longer more specific phrase.
Google love's niches.
I was very pleased to see both you and Aaron Wall respond to Seth's post on SEO. It needed the heavy-weights to weigh in. I was surprized to see him criticize long tail SEO strategies.
Surely, over time, as websites cover more search terms, they'll be building a strong foundation for future growth. Its not the flashy win but its the slow incremental stuff that often counts the most.
(Always very impressed with your analysis Rand - and love whiteboard fridays)
Title might not be perfect, but the content is great. Made me think, and think some more. I've always thought of getting people to my sites in the initial stages. Have taken for granted that they'll come back. Hmm ... still thinking.
This is good article, but it's too hard to implement.
SEO is dynamic. No one can guaranty that you make one or more way to get great position (or money) in SEO.
I like the post and Rand's attempt to stay top level. I think an alternative title could have been "Be Found. Here's How (to make money)."
All stages of search have the potential for being monetized at some point, it's a case by case (user) basis. Be found.
One statement Rand made caught my eye:
"The practice of search engine optimization may not be ubiquitous, yet, but it's only a matter of time. Either that, or some new technology will have to replace search and, in my opinion, we've not yet crested that horizon."
At some point, SEO will reach ubiquity in that most businesses will know the basic guidelines of SEO to perform low level optimization of their site or SEO services be provided as part of the package of starting a business or other. Does that mean once SEO reaches ubiquity, fees for SEO consulting of lower level services needed by a client are lower/non-existent and that the larger value fees is in the niche optimization and optimization of the "new technology..to replace search"? I guess it is partly defined by what the lower level SEO services are.
That's just the thought that came to mind as I read that statement.
This is great, but why not add the discovery point of "offline"? SEO can certainly target offline keywords?
great pretty picturesm i agree that breaking down keywords into 5 groups is great but may depend on the size of the project, if you are working on 10-20k keywords fair enough, but if its a small 200 keywords list maybe too specific and not enough in each category.
just a quick thought around that, maybe it might be a good way to identify if you seo campaign has weakness around in a particular stage.
awesome new blog system
I think personally that it all goes with the fine tuning of a campaign. I usually use 3 categories, but 5 for those who can can definetly enhance the results by having more relevant pages associated, is not a bad idea.
But like you said, this may also depend on the size of the campaign and some people may even find that 3 categories is already too much.
I wish I had something more intelligent to add.
But I feel that this post explores some of the reasons why companies need to understand SEO better and in more detail. Its not always about making money.
Actually when it come to SEO for big companies and money, there just so much more to talk, like ROI.
Many big firms also just want a top ranking, regardless of the cost and ROI they'll get for it... much more to be able to brag about the fact that their company is #1 in Google than understanding the implications and/or benefits.
There are days when it's like this blog reads my mind. I was just thinking about this, especially the different stages of the shopping cycle and how SEO can capture traffic at any point in it.
Great response to Godin's post.
Great post Rand, your illustrations are always straight to the point and they really drive home your points for me. I will definitely use that first table as a resource in the future.
In terms of convincing clients of the different uses of SEO, I really think that the table illustrates the specific needs for most individual businesses.
Looking forward to the next one!
Really enjoyed the table Rand. I sent it to a client of mine who is thinking about SEO but isn't completed sold on its uses. Thanks!
Thank you for this thorough response to Seth's post. I found Seth's original post because Shoemoney was promoting it on twitter. Maybe it was because he was mentioned in the post? I have a great deal of respect for Seth, Jeremy, Aaron and you Rand.