Talk by Lisa Myers at SES Conference & Expo in London, February 2012, on the Business of SEO

1. The Business of
SEO
Lisa Myers
CEO, Verve Search
#SESLondon
@LisaDMyers

2. About Lisa Myers
• 11 years experience in Marketing, 6 in Search & Social
• Speaker at Search Conferences Worldwide (SES, SMX, A4U etc)
• Regular contributor to on and offline publications and author of several SEO
Best Practise Guides including eConsultancy and B2B Marketing
• Heavily involved in the global Search Community, founder of
SEO-chicks.com and co-founder of European search blog StateofSearch
Awards
• “Search Personality of the Year” UK Search Awards 2011 + “Best SEO
Campaign” for her agency Verve Search
• Management Today “35 women under 35” list 2009
• “Best Use of Technology woman under 30”
BlackBerry Woman & Technology Awards (2008)
• “B2B Marketing Newcomer of the Year” (2007)

3. Search is unique as a marketing
discipline because its audience is
already looking for what you are
selling!

4. • 1 billion searches per day globally
• 74% of searches clicks on organic
• Around 42% of searches click on the 1st
position of organic and 80% within the first
3 positions
• Less than 1% click past the second page
@LisaDMyer

5. So why is it so hard to sell
SEO?

6. Business of SEO
Business
Development
New Biz
Client
Proposal/Pitchin
Retentio
n g
Up-
scaling

7. Typical SEO Proposal Process
Client: I want to be number one for
“IT solutions” and get lots of traffic
Agency: Sure, that will cost you £3k per
month
@LisaDMyer

8. Typical questions asked
• What industry? Give me a little
background
• What’s the website URL please
• Your top 10 keywords
• Your competitors
@LisaDMyer

9. 6 Months Later
Client: “SEO is not working for us, goodbye!”
Agency: “Uhm, well you are number 1 and
you
got the traffic!?!???”

10. The SEO industry’s biggest
issue
= OUR PROPOSAL
PROCESS!
Too many agencies take on client without
really
understanding what they need, or if they
should
@LisaDMyer

12. Sometimes saying no is as good for
business as
saying yes!
Agency – Business/Client - Industry

14. SEO should not be JUST about rankings
and
traffic, BUT conversions.
To be successful in SEO, you NEED to earn
your
client money. Simples.
@LisaDMyer

15. How SEO ROI is being tracked
WTF?

16. ROI Measurements of SEO
• 68% are using clicks / visitors
• 53% use position
• 42% (less than half!) use the number of
sales
• 30% use the value of sales
Source: Econsultancy UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmarking
Report 2011
@LisaDMyer

17. Understanding the
business and its goals

18. Understanding your clients
business
completely, not partly, but fully, is
the
only way to earn them money!

19. The must ask questions
• Market size & competition
• Relevant keywords and current rankings
• CURRENT conversion rates
• Profit margins
• Any plans to re-design
• Would they spend money on conversion
optimisation
• How much is #1 rankings worth?
@LisaDMyer

20. Estimating Traffic Worth
You will need to know:
#1 What is a conversion worth? (lead or sale.
For a bigger site this will be different
depending on product etc)
# 2 Current rankings, traffic and revenue from
organic (ideally analytics access)
# 3 Estimated Volume of keywords/traffic
@LisaDMyer

21. tools...
+

22. To sell SEO it’s beneficial to THINK
like an SEO!

23. Keyword Categories & modifiers
• Brand
• Descriptive
• Product/Service
• Location
• Verb and Adjectives (buy, cheap,
affordable)
• Top volume keywords (top 5
volume/targets)

24. Keyword Tagging for ROI
estimation
Different keyword groups and modifiers are
likely to have different conversion rates.
Brand usually has a much higher conversion
rate than other keywords for example!
@LisaDMyer

25. using Linkdex

26. Keyword Tagging
Need tagging slide

27. Benchmarking Value of
Rankings
Client Competitor 1 Competitor 2
Keyword 1
Keyword 2
• Estimated volume (Google AdWords)
• Current rank (you and competitors)
• Traffic (link Analytics to get actual traffic
received)
@LisaDMyer

28. What is the higher ranking
worth?
Client Competitor 1 Competitor 2
#3 #2 #1
Currently client is ranking #3 generates an estimate of 1,282 visits
if they were going to buy this traffic it would have cost them £6,36
If they go from 3rd to 1st position the revenue generated from
these 2 keywords alone is likely to increase by 390%

29. Spotting the SEOpportunities
How difficult will it be to achieve first
position?
The difference between you and your
competitors; actual SEO part of the proposal
@LisaDMyer

30. To CLOSE the deal you have to
think like the person with the
wallet..
@LisaDMyer

31. Thank You!
Email: lisa@vervesearch.com
Web: www.vervesearch.com
www.stateofsearch.com
www.seo-chicks.com
@LisaDMyer