Re: UKNM: Search engine promotions

[Graham Hansell - Sitelynx website promotion]

>After creating search engine pages, deleting dead links from search 

>engines, refining the page content and title etc. we actually achieved 

>number one spot in all 10 of the main search engines when searching for 

>"british magazines" - albeit for 1 week only (I have the screen grab!). A 

>couple have fallen slightly since then but all engines still put the site 

>on page 1.


That is good going but how much work was that in all. Most prospects still

think it is just about Meta Tags and up they pop at no.1


>As for how important search engines are. Well. On this site estimate that 

>1/3 - 1/2 of all new traffic originates via the search engine route. With 

>another 1/3 from promotions (a banner/keyword campaign on Yahoo US worked 

>well) and the remainder from personal referrals, links, off-line 

>promotion, reviews and so on.


We have found similar results with our clients - between 25-50% of NEW

traffic comes from the search engines. However your point about a small

percentage remainder coming from links is very important. 

As at least half of the top traffic search engines include link popularity

in their algorithm we now are advising all clients to run a Link Building

campaign along side any Search engine optimisation work.


>What we have found, though, is that the key to keeping the traffic high 

>(on the British Magazines site at least) is repeat visits - once you've 

>got 'em (by whatever means) the trick is to keep 'em coming back. I did 

>some cookie analysis on this site recently and found that during any one 

>week over 1/3 of all visitors had been to the site before...


That is so true any online or off-line promotion will only bring people

once (maybe twice at a push in search engines) but if the site isn't

relevant and particularly involving then people won't return.


It does depend on the site but we have found follow up "quality" email

contact helps the churn factor.


Graham