One of the more remarkable developments over the last few years in SEO has certainly been the intelligence increase of Google & Yahoo! (and MSN to a lesser degree). From 1997-2002, a page really needed to be "optimized" for search engines in ways that differed from how they were "designed" for visitors. Bravo! to the engines for closing this gap - now, it's our turn to interpret that sequence of events and draw it out to its many logical conclusions...
One of these is how we author title tags & meta descriptions. This has gone from a game of keyword stuffing and phrase manipulation to the art of writing headlines - an almost exact parallel with the PPC task of writing the ad title and description. Yet, when I look around the web at competitive search results, the ad copy is still considerably better at drawing in visits - For example, if you were to reverse the paid and organic results, I'm betting the advertisers would see a dramatic drop-off in CTR, while the organic results would receive a huge boost.
How is it that we, as SEOs, have forgotten that we're not just competing for rank. we're competing for eyeballs and clicks, too?
Let's examine a few listings:
Andreoni.com could certainly take some tips from the paid listings about writing for the audience, but where they really lose out is by putting their location - Montreal, Quebec, suggesting to potential clickers that they're only serving one geographic market. About.com runs its title and description too long, but the results aren't bad. However, Starting the description with their second sentence would almost certainly bolster CTR, and the repetitious title tag could be significantly more compelling by removing the "business card design" from the front and letting the rest of the title show through (layout ideas and tutorials).
None of the three organic listings appear to be attempting to pull in searchers with the same veracity that the paid results have. While TheWineBuyer.com shockingly doesn't use the word "champagne," it's obviously paying off with a high CTR (or they're paying an arm and a leg to have that front position). ChampagneGifts.com is doing better, but I'd wager that both would benefit from having a price range and timing for their shipping (i.e. overnight shipping avail). Wine.com & Costco.com have really let me down here - they clearly have relevant inlinks on the subject, but have failed to properly target and direct the engines and their users. Neither have the keywords in the title tag of any page on their site (check costco and wine.com).
The new Cingular Blackjack is making me feel inadequate about my "Q," but Cingular themselves should be feeling pretty awful about their own inadequacy on the search results for the phone. Although they're ranking first, the results pages Google's showing are not something I'd be likely to click on. The first result has no relevance to the Blackjack and the second is "coming soon." In a display of delectable irony, their PPC team has authored a very nice listing - they're paying for a result that probably costs them thousands every day in extra PPC that could be fixed simply by optimizing the pages that already rank organically.
Wirefly is even smarter - telling searchers that there's a sale price and describing the phone in the way it's advertised on TV - as a "slim samsung smartphone" rather than a "compact 3g."
Generally, this issue comes down to a matter of motivation. The PPC result team is incredibly focused on the ad copy, while the organic team doesn't have the same pressure to perform in this particular area (usually). Certainly, the limited stats shown in the PPC admin panels provide extra knowledge and incentive (as opposed to the great effort required to compare CTR for organic results).
However, I think the same rules that apply in PPC apply to SEO, too - once you're in the top 3-5 results, the CTR, landing page quality and ad copy all directly influence performance (through clicks & conversion) and rank (indirectly, through how many people choose to link to you).
So, take a lesson from those PPC specialists and make those high rankings work for you - steal everyone else's eyeballs and clicks and you can have even more than just a high rank.
p.s. While working on this post, I found one of Google's odder graphic tweaks for the holidays in a search for christmas tree - check out the blue line that separates organic from paid results - it's been replaced by little xmas trees!
Great post. If you've seen me at SES, you know I'm always preaching a holistic approach (even though I loath that phrase).
You should first be looking at the business goals at hand, and planning all online marketing activities congruent with offline. Then optimize the site to rank organically – but still implement optimized PPC ads for the same terms as well. We took a lot of criticism for doing so early on – but we were able to quickly show that people use SERPs differently. Some go right to PPC, others to organic. Many people conduct research with organic ads – then look to PPC in the purchasing process.
Either way, I highly recommend running PPC in tandem with organic listings – adding in A/B testing for ad copy versions to really drill down to the sweet spot.
Great points, up until this bit: "In a display of delectable irony, their PPC team has authored a very nice listing - they're paying for a result that probably costs them thousands every day in extra PPC that could be fixed simply by optimizing the pages that already rank organically."
Why do you recon it is "extra" PPC? Just because you have a top "natural" listing (even with proper copy) does not mean that you are capturing all the sales possible at a given ROI. same goes for a top PPC placement.
I think the SEO and PPC camps need to stop viewing the SERPs as a zero sum game. You should be optimizing both your natural and paid listings, rather than viewing one or the other as expendable.
That's a fantastic argument, but placing a value on both equally is hard for me to do. I come from an old school marketing background, and I'm seeing the lines between classical marketing and search marketing blurring if not fading away.
PPC is paid. I don't want a no doy argument to ensue, but in classic retail and service industries, your paid marketing (advertising) was an always and effort to increase your walk in traffic. Yes, paid advertising always attracted direct sales, but what your always after is your regular walk in traffic to increase.
So PPC is print ads, and SERP is the location of your store. Just by getting my store, or shop, or garage, or whatever cute little connection I can make, in the right place, negates certain advertising necessities.
What I think that Rand might be getting to as well, and Rand is free to bop me on the nose if I'm speaking out my ear (or other body parts we should only allude too) is that why should a site owner pay for traffic that it will get by default anyway, if I positioned my business correctly?
If your store is on main street, and you sells tires, and your store's name is "We sell tires", why should you pay for a billboard 1 block away that says the same things. The business is yours by default.
"If your store is on main street, and you sells tires, and your store's name is "We sell tires", why should you pay for a billboard 1 block away that says the same things. The business is yours by default."
It's about the profit. How much of it would you like? You won't get it all (even with a fixed ROI goal) by doing just SEO or just PPC.
Oh, I agree, but to a certain extent. Your not going to get it all even with both. But in this case, I don't think you have to double your efforts for the same amount of sales.
The PPC should support your sales, but not supplant them. In other words, if your getting great traffic and sales from "Goodyear tires," you can suppliment your sales and profits with Ads for "Goodyear Radial Tires." But why should you run ads for "Goodyear Tires " when you have a well formed, attention grabbing title that will get you that traffic anyway?
Uhmmm, did we just go "off topic?" Sorry Rand.
My point is that you won't get "that traffic", even with a well formed, attention grabbing title. Some people default to ads. Probably less of them will if your SEO copy is decent, but a significant portion of them still will. Their business is there to be had, if you want it.
Sorry for the big detour, I think the original post was great.
We agree, but differently.
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Whatever, you know what I mean. Good debate JamieMac.
Again, sorry Rand for going off topic.
I also thought the original post was eyeopening and informed.
If you own 2 of the 5 tire stores in a row on main street that all sell tires, you will sell more tires than owning only one store. You can also segment your market by targeting your brand differently with two different "stores" adn thus gain more market share by appealing to different types of buyers.
Anybody who is into serious lead gen online for any major vertical is insane if they rely on either paid or natural and ignores the other. That's just real estate for your competition to set up shop and take some of your traffic.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who typed in these searches to recreate the results, but it's definitely worth a look, or an inquiry, to find the CTR for the cited examples, and for more reasons than just the "reason of search."
In other words, as much as Google is making from advertising, I've read at least 1 article citing that CTR for Google Ads (On SERP pages) is actually down due to the saturation. Now, that particular writer (which was obviously forgettable, because I can't tell you the where or when, because I'm a dumb rumblepup doo doo head) did have an interesting point. Your average searcher is now so accustomed to the presence of advertising, Google advertising in particular, that even if the heading is attention grabbing, such as these obviously are, then they are bypassing them for the search results.
However, I think that this trend (of ignoring Google ads) might be a more evidenced in those industries or markets where web owners, designers or web marketers are a little more SEO savvy. Google Ads and Search Results will actually mirror in attention grabbing titles.
In the examples you have provided, I'm absolutely sure that the CTR is much better at the cited Ads, and bupkiss at the SERP. In other words, I totally agree. (Jeez rumblepup, that took forever to spit out)
But what I'm asking is are these search terms, and the markets that serve, isolated cases, or are we seeing a little bit of both? As an old school research marketer, these results tell me that these particular industries are not marketed effectively, and if I had a diversified business, this would be an excellent time to get in, and market correctly.
It would be an interesting to report how many industries, that are evidenced by search, are marketing correctly online. From your examples, business cards, buying champagne online and providing Cingular blackjacks are under search marketed products and industries. I wonder how many others are?
On a side note, I also noticed that order champagne online also returns Verizon ads. Funky.
Following up on what Scott said, starting a PPC campaign would really add value to test what headline phrases (title) and copy (description tag) result in the highest CTR. Then one could implement those phrases with the best results on the organic side after enough data has been gathered from the PPC side.
I would think testing the effectiveness of titles and descriptions without a PPC campaign would be a nightmare because of the variance in the frequency that the engines re-index various sites and pages on those sites. But with PPC, changes are essentially real-time and tracking effectiveness at a detailed level would be very easy.
Exactly!
One side note though - we have seen very well performing PPC ads perform poorly when transferred to organic.
Proves the theory that there is simply no way to template an online campaign. Results vary widely between clients.
Scott - yes, you make a brilliant point, one that's deserving of its own post :)
Deserving its own post Rand? Heheh, I beat you on this one, mine is already out and is 2 pages long ;)
Please, Scott, Look at the next post, and please give me your feedback!
Guillaume,
Will do. Stay tuned...
Some things I have noticed recently and general comments.
If you place keywords in heading tags, it won't be used for a snippet.
What quite often happens on a blog, is that a trackback quoting your post title will be used as a snippet, even if it has been translated into Chinese. In English search results I have had snippets that only contained 2 words of English.
Should we be writing every paragraph based on the fact that it might be used as a snippet sometime?
If you understand how it works for your pages and for your most popular terms, you can preload the page to get a snippet that you like.
I myself have experienced the non-performance of a badly written description despite getting at the top of the search results. For instance, on Google.com my website (amrithallan.com) comes at the first place for "content writer" but I hardly get 150-200 total visitors per week (yes, not even per day). I noticed the text that appeared below the link was very obscure. So then I changed the description and the new description is appearing now. There hasn't still been a great difference, but I'm in the process of studying/testing more options.
Great post. I think the main point is that SEO people need a bit of Marketing Sense to ensure that the keywords sell as well as rank highly. It's happening slowly.
Yes but if you look at Costco for the wine example, what you have is a long tail result. It might be possible to improve it slightly, but not to the extent that it reads like a PPC advert on that specific phrase, unless the results in the SERPs was for an internal page. Their internal pages could be better optimized.
Andy - good point; it's not merely a matter of poor ad copy writing, they've also got a serious need to compartmentalize and do individual targeting. My guess is that both companies are losing thousands every day in potential sales due to this issue.
While I agree that writing for humans should be be paramount, I'm not sure the search engines have evolved enough to completely substantiate their "write for humans and they will come" mantra.
Google, et al, are still WAY too literal. If you already have an audience (and one that links out), you can be a lot more poetic. But for most sites (especially in the long tail) - you still have to get your keywords in - otherwise you probably won't be at the top of the SERPS to wow people with your copy.
The perfect headline on page 3 doesn't matter. Unfortunately search engines are still too much like 5 year olds (to use Matt's simile) that take things way too literally .
Excellent post, I'm currently working on re-writing a lot of the sites I've designed, now that they're ranking. With SEO / SEM there's always something else to do and never enough time in a day, which is why this job is so fun.
Google also has decorations for Kwanzaa and Chanukah searches.
This line threw me for a while
I couldn't get the idea of simply moving the results around on the page, resulting in what I would suspect would be an improvement for the advertisers, out of my head. Not what you meant at all. All became clear once I realised you meant just the ad copy. What can I say, it's late.
I'm currently in the process of redesigning my site and one of the changes I'm making is going from a default serendipity blog install, with no meta descriptions, to custom meta descriptions for each page. Hopefully see some improvements once things settle down from all the changes.
lol... looks like Google has learned a few tricks from the MFA sites.
...back to the original topic... Why do you think that the SEOs have been slacking on this? They are focusing on SERPs instead of the bottom line. I still think that it is rare to find an SEO shop that sells the whole loaf. Also, this should be a wake-up call for the contract departments who hire the SEOs - and although not everyone will agree it's also a good argument to hire your SEO on a "percent of the take" basis.
Some of us think that competing for clicks (along with the ability to retain that visitor) also helps in the competition for rank.
If Google was to remove those trees and move PPC listings from right to left it would be kind of evil.
That find is also highly related to the recent outburst about "Google Tips" if you follow Matt Cutts blog.
Good eye Rand.
I think you should note that the search engines don't always display the description you write in your meta.
Inserting the NOODP tag should also be in the SEO's checklist if the ODP info is not desired in the big 3's SERPs, which seems to be the case for Andreoni.com.
Nice catch. That and the noyahoodirectory tag once they release it will both be essentials for the organic listings copywriter.
oh man! I am salivating for that noyahoodirectory tag. ... but really, instead of creating that tag they should simply do away with their current practice.
Well, I've said it before, and you can bet dollars to donuts that I'll say it again: Everything Starts And Ends With Copy As far as I'm concerned, any SEO/PPC/SEM professional should have a very solid grounding in copywriting. So much of what we do (writing Title/meta tags, PPC ads, ad split testing, copy split testing etc) comes down to copy (at it's most basic level), it should be common sense that it's needed.
Btw, I tested KeyComplete thingy. It's quite variable, but seems to be ok. Got a long way to go before it's completely there though...
This topic's analyses and conclusions are debatable.
The major reasons that keyword stuffing no longer works as it did in the earlier days - and Search engines are perceived to be closing the gap between optimized and design is due to the fact that Google initially succeeded with: Link popularity --> Popularity of Links --> Anchor text in back links ...and others followed (Ask had always been using 'expert rank') These newer ALGOS made bodytext, meta and titles less of a deciding factor in SERPs.
Also, the growth of Social Sites are now having an impact in writing style - keyword stuffing is irrelevant, but HOOKs are mandatory. :)
As far as putting the city location in the title or meta or bodytext ... this does increase the click through because LOCAL search has just not taken off, and casual searchers are beginning to realize the importance of adding cities to keywords.
As far as the Title tags go, GYM are now assigning SERPs priority to the ORDER and PLACEMENT of the Title keywords. as well as BOLDING them.
If those Webmasters on the organic SERPs only were interested in appearing high for only those queries used as examples, then the analyses would be more relevant....however, they are probably optimizing for more versions of a given query theme.
I could not agree more. This has been sticking in my craw for some time.
I consistently see ppc listings with far more compelling 'ad copy' than can be found in organic listings. There is a line between ppc and organic search work, to be sure. But it is important to put the basic rules of advertising copy to work at all times.
Organic listings are often generic; they describe entire sites: "Find a cell phone, browse cell phone plans and ringtones" is an excellent example.
Will you get to the home page of a phone service provider or find the hardware you want immediately? A savvier reader might look at the link to see that the page seems to be specific to the "C417 promo", but is that really a blackjack? Only cellphone sales staff know for sure.
The next listing gets it right, except that it seems the item might not be in stock yet. The linked url uses the term blackjack in it too - another plus.
A study of how valuable tight marketing copy is to an organic listing would be interesting. I suspect (but have no stats to prove) readers will pass over 3-4 listings at least to select a listing with better copy. Food for thought.
I did an article on using paid search to help organic listings for Andy Beal's search scholarship contest, and I strongly agree with this. Someone who runs potential titles and descriptions through an AdWords campaign to learn more about what converts views to clicks, and clicks to customers can do better at number 3 or 4 than a site at number 1 with no targeted message.
I think it's also a part of why longer searches can result in better conversions than one or two-word searches. While a big part of it may be that people know exactly what they're looking for with 4 or 5 words, another part could be that scanning the results for 2 and 3 word queries turns up a bunch of the "order champagne online" style results, and they add more terms to try to target.
There was a study released a little while ago (Can't remember the source) that showed paid search ads got clicked slightly more often than organic listings. Since all the eyetracking heatmaps that come out show people look at organic listings first, I think that's a direct demonstration of the power of compelling ad copy.