12 replies
  • SEO
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Hi there,

This is my first post on a forum here as my company has all of the sudden hit a huge stall with leads generated from online marketing and we are starting to hit the panic button.

As a little background information... We are a commercial office interior company named Sensyst based out of Toronto, Canada. That builds, plans, designs and furnishes office building and other commercial interiors.

In March of this year we had a big change to our online marketing scheme... Previously around this time we were running aggressive PPC campaigns all across our area and were getting an immense number of leads which lead to almost too much work at the time and we were crazy busy. Sometime during the spring of 2013 the President of the company visited a conference and all of these people started talking about how PPC is not a long term investment and working with Organic SEO was the answer to this problem and would generate even more leads than PPC.

Now Sensyst has all of these tools running a Blog, various Social Media channels, etc. and the Leads have disappeared completely.

The simple answer seems to be just switch back to the old way but I am more curious to figuring out why this could be happening and why with all of these new tricks and tools we are generating way less results than we were with PPC campaigns. (note we still run some PPC campaigns just way less) We have spent roughly $7500 these last few months on building content and organic SEO with literally nothing to show for it.

Thanks in Advance for any help... it is much appreciated.


David
#help and advice #ppc #question or advice #scenario #seo
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I'm thinking your PPC campaigns had you at the top of the SERPs for your keywords. I checked 16 of your organic keywords that you have in your meta keywords tag, most are not even on page #1 of Google SERPs.

    So... the problem is your simply not ranked at the top of any of the Google search results pages.

    IMO, that's why you're not picking up new leads with SEO.

    Here's your organic positions, I won't post the keywords:

    Google.ca position
    9
    20
    17
    -0
    50
    30
    153
    87
    37
    -0
    25
    88
    -0
    82
    23
    77

    What did you spend $7,500 on?

    [edit]
    You have a decent link profile, don't let anyone talk you into buying crap links. Your site just need some good quality local & same niche links to give your site some authority & get your pages ranked.
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    • Profile picture of the author davidandperry
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      I'm thinking your PPC campaigns had you at the top of the SERPs for your keywords. I checked 16 of your organic keywords that you have in your meta keywords tag, most are not even on page #1 of Google SERPs.

      So... the problem is your simply not ranked at the top of any of the Google search results pages.

      IMO, that's why you're not picking up new leads with SEO.

      Here's your organic positions, I won't post the keywords:

      Google.ca position
      9
      20
      17
      -0
      50
      30
      153
      87
      37
      -0
      25
      88
      -0
      82
      23
      77

      What did you spend $7,500 on?

      [edit]
      You have a decent link profile, don't let anyone talk you into buying crap links. Your site just need some good quality local & same niche links to give your site some authority & get your pages ranked.
      Thanks Yukon.

      I really appreciate the numbers and everything you have shown me and it is quite astonishing... I've never actually used that tool before. When referring to local and same niche links is there anywhere you would refer me to to learn about this better and effectively?

      The $7500 has been collectively paid over the past 3 months paying the third party marketing agency to build content, link building, and work on ad campaigns for us. I recently joined the company and as an intern I am working on trying to fix this problem

      David
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  • Profile picture of the author HeadStartSEO
    Originally Posted by davidandperry View Post

    Hi there,

    This is my first post on a forum here as my company has all of the sudden hit a huge stall with leads generated from online marketing and we are starting to hit the panic button.

    As a little background information... We are a commercial office interior company named Sensyst based out of Toronto, Canada. That builds, plans, designs and furnishes office building and other commercial interiors.

    In March of this year we had a big change to our online marketing scheme... Previously around this time we were running aggressive PPC campaigns all across our area and were getting an immense number of leads which lead to almost too much work at the time and we were crazy busy. Sometime during the spring of 2013 the President of the company visited a conference and all of these people started talking about how PPC is not a long term investment and working with Organic SEO was the answer to this problem and would generate even more leads than PPC.

    Now Sensyst has all of these tools running a Blog, various Social Media channels, etc. and the Leads have disappeared completely.

    The simple answer seems to be just switch back to the old way but I am more curious to figuring out why this could be happening and why with all of these new tricks and tools we are generating way less results than we were with PPC campaigns. (note we still run some PPC campaigns just way less) We have spent roughly $7500 these last few months on building content and organic SEO with literally nothing to show for it.

    Thanks in Advance for any help... it is much appreciated.


    David

    Building on content isn't SEO for the large part. It's mostly marketing; however, you need to have a killer site that's worthy of ranking(this means content, functionality, etc.). Think of SEO as a holistic approach links, content, social media, etc and it does take time for it to grow. Often SEO'ers use content as a way to tell the search engines what keywords they are going after. The real SEO part of SEO is still and will always be links.

    If your not doing link building, then your really not doing SEO. Seems to be you guys are doing some kind of DIY SEO, and that's never suggested.

    Before going into detail I need a few questions answered first. What are you doing in terms of link building? Who is helping you, or are you doing this on your own?

    If you have any more questions you want to ask me directly, you can always message me or leave something in the forums.
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    • Profile picture of the author davidandperry
      Originally Posted by HeadStartSEO View Post

      Building on content isn't SEO for the large part. It's mostly marketing; however, you need to have a killer site that's worthy of ranking(this means content, functionality, etc.). Think of SEO as a holistic approach links, content, social media, etc and it does take time for it to grow. Often SEO'ers use content as a way to tell the search engines what keywords they are going after. The real SEO part of SEO is still and will always be links.

      If your not doing link building, then your really not doing SEO. Seems to be you guys are doing some kind of DIY SEO, and that's never suggested.

      Before going into detail I need a few questions answered first. What are you doing in terms of link building? Who is helping you, or are you doing this on your own?

      If you have any more questions you want to ask me directly, you can always message me or leave something in the forums.
      Hi "HeadStartSEO" We have currently been working with a third party marketing company who builds our content, our link building etc. Before we worked with a company that was more specifically oriented to working with PPC. When we had the most success from our website it was right inbetween switching between the two external marketing agencies. The first company we worked with is still in charge of dealing with our website and we are working currently on designing some key changes to the site. In terms of content building on the site, blog, social media we have been doing this in hopes of keeping up to date with technology and the firm we work with insists that adding content builds SEO

      Thanks for your reply
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  • Profile picture of the author Marty Foley
    Hi David,

    That's a bummer.

    A couple thoughts about the drastic decline in results after switching the focus from PPC to SEO. Obviously we can't change the past but we can learn lessons to minimize similar mistakes in the future...

    There's a lot of misinformation floating around about which marketing approaches work best and which don't. To make important business moves based on what we hear from others (who may have a financial incentive in swaying us in a certain way, or may just be parroting what they've heard from others with no real evidence to back it up) can be costly.

    Before making big changes (website redesigns, change in ad media, etc.) it's wise to have a good handle on the performance metrics of your business. This means having conversion tracking and web analytics in place so you can know your current conversion rates, cost per conversion, cost per visitor/lead/sale, etc., for each ad medium.

    Then as we (conservatively) test new opportunities, the numbers will tell us whether they are really worth pursuing, and thus investing more into, or not. If a "test" doesn't work as planned, losses are minimized, and wins can be better exploited.

    I'm not suggesting that you should pursue SEO or PPC to the exclusion of the other. It's not really an either / or scenario. Entrepreneurs should diversify, using as many different marketing approaches as they have the resources to pursue, as long as the investment of time and money is worth the payoff. But they've gotta know and stay on top of their numbers.

    "Know thy numbers, and let them guide you."

    With that said, you have more control over your marketing with PPC, rather than SEO, mainly because with PPC your traffic is not at the whim of the latest organic ranking algorithms. Sure there are PPC changes to stay up with, but the PPC search networks generally inform you of them well in advance so you can adapt and be ready.

    Not so with SEO, where search engines prefer that marketers stay in the dark, in the hopes they don't figure out how to game them for high rankings.

    ~ Marty Foley / ConvertMoreTraffic.Com
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    • Profile picture of the author davidandperry
      Originally Posted by Marty Foley View Post

      Hi David,

      That's a bummer.

      A couple thoughts about the drastic decline in results after switching the focus from PPC to SEO. Obviously we can't change the past but we can learn lessons to minimize similar mistakes in the future...

      There's a lot of misinformation floating around about which marketing approaches work best and which don't. To make important business moves based on what we hear from others (who may have a financial incentive in swaying us in a certain way, or may just be parroting what they've heard from others with no real evidence to back it up) can be costly.

      Before making big changes (website redesigns, change in ad media, etc.) it's wise to have a good handle on the performance metrics of your business. This means having conversion tracking and web analytics in place so you can know your current conversion rates, cost per conversion, cost per visitor/lead/sale, etc., for each ad medium.

      Then as we (conservatively) test new opportunities, the numbers will tell us whether they are really worth pursuing, and thus investing more into, or not. If a "test" doesn't work as planned, losses are minimized, and wins can be better exploited.

      I'm not suggesting that you should pursue SEO or PPC to the exclusion of the other. It's not really an either / or scenario. Entrepreneurs should diversify, using as many different marketing approaches as they have the resources to pursue, as long as the investment of time and money is worth the payoff. But they've gotta know and stay on top of their numbers.

      "Know thy numbers, and let them guide you."

      With that said, you have more control over your marketing with PPC, rather than SEO, mainly because with PPC your traffic is not at the whim of the latest organic ranking algorithms. Sure there are PPC changes to stay up with, but the PPC search networks generally inform you of them well in advance so you can adapt and be ready.

      Not so with SEO, where search engines prefer that marketers stay in the dark, in the hopes they don't figure out how to game them for high rankings.

      ~ Marty Foley / ConvertMoreTraffic.Com
      Thank you Marty for your reply..

      We have been eyeing the Analytics consistently and the drop in numbers is still quite surprising even after utilizing more and more tools. The way I've analyzed it so far is PPC is effective most definitely and it seems to be more of the lazy mans way of marketing while working with organic SEO it seems to be more costly, time consuming and hit or miss. Although the PPC campaign can be costly in the long run once more and more people start using it and it gets more competitive I feel as if it worked previously and flawlessly it should in theory work again (hopefully).

      I will take your advice and start looking at the numbers religiously and hopefully as you said they will guide me.

      Thanks

      David
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      • Profile picture of the author Marty Foley
        Originally Posted by davidandperry View Post

        I will take your advice and start looking at the numbers religiously and hopefully as you said they will guide me.
        Good, that's a smart habit used by the most highly successful marketers.

        Hopefully you still have access to the PPC campaign and performance data. If so you (or your PPC manager) could apply the 80/20 rule to it with an eye on cutting out as much fat as possible, i.e., the keywords, ads, and geographic areas which have generated significant traffic but no conversions. This would free up $ to use elsewhere.

        Marty
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Really, in my opinion, a business should be pursuing both avenues. It should never be one or the other. Even when my clients get top rankings, I still strongly encourage them to continue to use PPC advertising. It improves branding. If someone searches for your product or service and sees your business referenced more than once on the first page of Google's listings, they are inclined to believe that you are an authority in that service area.

    SEO will almost never produce the immediate bang you are looking for. Unless there is little to no competition, achieving high rankings takes time. Maybe a few months. Maybe closer to a year or longer if it is really competitive.

    If money is a limiting factor on this, I would recommend the company shift a larger portion of its budget back to PPC. A business needs leads to survive.
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    • Profile picture of the author ForgeMedia
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Really, in my opinion, a business should be pursuing both avenues. It should never be one or the other. Even when my clients get top rankings, I still strongly encourage them to continue to use PPC advertising. It improves branding. If someone searches for your product or service and sees your business referenced more than once on the first page of Google's listings, they are inclined to believe that you are an authority in that service area.

      SEO will almost never produce the immediate bang you are looking for. Unless there is little to no competition, achieving high rankings takes time. Maybe a few months. Maybe closer to a year or longer if it is really competitive.

      If money is a limiting factor on this, I would recommend the company shift a larger portion of its budget back to PPC. A business needs leads to survive.
      I agree with you Mike. Same advice I am giving here. I have one client that ranked no-where (beyond page 30) organically, and in a space of a few months we got them to page 2~4. Unfortunately, that still sucks, but the spinoff was that they got many many more page one impressions and improved overall in performance, yet their keyword haven't yet made it to the place we wanted. Reason: The client is an Insurance Broker, and they are up against multi-national companies for ranking, that have been around for years.
      We've just pitched PPC to them to get them into page 1, because without some really major content additions, links, and a lot of time, we think the move from page 2 to page 1 will take too long.
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  • Profile picture of the author drewfioravanti
    "SEO" is a scam. Your CEO got scammed.

    Go back to CPC and get some money coming in.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by drewfioravanti View Post

      "SEO" is a scam. Your CEO got scammed.

      Go back to CPC and get some money coming in.
      I'm always amazed at people spewing PPC like there's no learning curve.

      Walk in, drop some cash, BINGO your an instant millionaire! :rolleyes:
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  • Profile picture of the author Moneymaker2012
    SEO haven't lost it's charm but we all know it is not the same as before,
    PPC is turning out to be more effective in many of my campaigns, it is cheaper than SEO but still better than SEO in so many ways.
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