Web Analytics
My biggest gripe in the organic SEO world right now is analytics.
In many organic SEO campaigns, there is very little regard given to the results of the campaign. I've come up with a few hypotheses as to why:
1. Most decision makers do not understand the power or potential of organic SEO - for some reason, organic SEO is seen as "gravy" or icing on the cake of all other marketing efforts in large company environments. To say the least, this appears to be proportional to the "web savviness" of the business in general-and many large businesses today are still working to create a real, usable web strategy.
2. Big companies like to spend money - For whatever reason, there is a higher level of confidence with the greater the amount of money that is spent. This is why you find huge companies that do not have Linux deployed anywhere within their evironment-the confidence appears to come from spending money. This is also why a lot of SEO consulting companies are able to rake in big fees - if they didn't charge them, there would be little confidence in their ability to deliver.
3. Organic SEO's are viewed by some as the ultimate "snake oil salesmen" - while you have to hang out with them to get something you need for your business, there's not a great deal of trust you put in them or their practice.
All of these reasons have worked together to ensure that REAL Key Peformance Indicators (KPI's) will not be developed for SEO. What do I define as a REAL KPI-simple, one that assists a business in devising strategy to make money.
Since most large companies do not anticipate making an appreciable or measureable amount of money from their organic SEO efforts, they do not worry with creating real KPI's and models for success. Smaller companies do not have the volume, so while they likely have more robust models (their survival is much more closely intertwined with their organic SEO efforts), their models likely will not scale to the level necessary to make real strategic decisions at a large corporate level.
So there is a void right now. I will continue to explore exactly how to fill that void and keep you all updated on what I find.
posted by BlogMarket @ 9:50 AM
2 Comments:
hi, how are you?
I enjoyed the post a lot & I really like the way you write.
I think you're right. One of the big problems is that many SEOs pitch it as a 'reactive' rather than 'proactive' problem:
People think "how can we spread what we've got?" rather than "what are we really trying to do & how can we achieve that?". The end result being that there /is/ nothing to track, because there's no concrete notion of success.
One of the big reasons behind that is that focussing on objectives is harder work for third-party companies & requires /real/ working together - not just superficial relationship work. Whereas, selling a simple "what you got? we'll make some little modifications" package is a really simple sell with little useful interaction.
Another problem is the lack of widespread knowledge combined with the low barriers to entry. Clients know very little about SEO, & anyone with a bit of confidence & half a relationship can come in and say they know what's what.
I look forward to reading more of your stuff. How about working on something together?
daniel
Thanks for the kind words Daniel!
I'll visit your site and get in touch with you-I agree COMPLETELY that the "cowboy" nature of SEO (the only price of entry is a computer and a business card with the term "SEO expert" behind the name) right now is a big factor in the state of the industry.
I'll keep writing, thanks again for the kind words
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