We’re touching on SEO again. It’s a hot topic in the online world right now. Companies are seeing the share of organic clicks going down in favor of paid clicks.
There was another report put out by Wordstream on the topic.
From The War on ‘Free’ Clicks: Think Nobody Clicks on Google Ads? Think Again!:
Clicks on paid search listings beat out organic clicks by nearly a 2:1 margin for keywords with high commercial intent in the US.
That’s pretty big time. There is an entire infographic to go along with the research so be sure to check it out. This trend has been going on for years and is now really starting to pick up steam. It’s time to pay attention and plan for the future.
Here are the recent posts about SEO from the past couple weeks:
- SEO Is Not Dead. It’s Just Less Important
- More Reason to Believe That Free Clicks are Over
- Blog Traffic Sources
It’s been a busy couple months in the SEO world. Google has been making a series of moves to fight Web spam and they’re also making moves to bolster their revenue streams. Again, it makes sense for Google. They have stockholders to please. They’re not going to give things away for free all the time. They need to make cash.
The landscape of the online world is changing. There has been about five years or so where it was relatively easy to get rankings on Google and reap the rewards. It’s been a good ride, but now it’s time for Google to move toward a Yellow Pages model. It makes sense for them and it’s time for everyone to adjust.
We’ve talked about what you can do. You can work with Google and pay them to give you referral traffic. It’s certainly an option. It works for some businesses. There are other forms of advertising that work online as well. Anything profitable is obviously something worth considering.
The other option is to continue focusing on content and inbound marketing. This strategy continues to work for companies for a variety of reasons. There is tons of sharing happening 0nline. Recently it’s been social media, but even before that it was email sharing. People talk about content and they share it with their friends, family and associates.
Content is something that can be shared. It’s something that can be discovered by potential clients. That’s how a business needs to focus if they want to get into the inbound marketing game. Google was a large player in the past with SEO, but that role is lessoning. It’s time to focus on other sources of traffic and there is opportunity out there.
There is also the reciprocity theory. Once you have given someone something like a free how to guide they are driven by internal psychology to respond in kind. They have a pull to purchase something from you. It’s one of the beauties of blogging. When people gain value from your blog they feel obligated to return the favor.
A few things to remember:
Blogging is a long term commitment: Lots of businesses have gotten involved in blogging and have quit too soon. It’s hard to blog. Don’t start if you don’t think you can do it consistently for two years with the potential of no return. Sometimes it can take 3-5 years to start seeing the long-term payback.
Dont’ focus on SEO: It’s not about SEO anymore. Focus on getting email subscribers. Focus on creating content that is worthwhile enough to be shared.
Service businesses tend to do better: Blogging can really be great for service businesses. It can work for others companies, but services businesses seem to have the most opportunity for large return.
That’s another story in the blogging world. SEO is going away at least in the way we know it today.
What is your blogging focus for the future?