There’s an interesting thread on SEO Roundtable today regarding the way Google’s rankings can affect small businesses. The fact of the matter is that when Google shuffles its rankings or when competitors start to get aggressive, small business can suffer when they are shuffled down in the search engine rankings.
It’s a timely post as I have a new client that was shuffled off of the first page in the Google rankings for their particular niche search terms, and their revenue has dropped significantly. I wish there was a rosier picture to paint, but this business has a slow road to recovery ahead of it.
Luckily for other businesses that still have good rankings, I see two ways to prevent business decline, and I employ these with many of my clients that hire me to perform search engine consulting services.
1. When times are good (and rankings are high), try harder to keep your ranking.
Work with your search engine consultant to continue SEO efforts when your site is ranked well. If your site is ranked on the first page or even in the #1 spot, you should be continuing to build links to your site, optimize your site and build your business. If your site is #1 for your niche search term, the target is on your back, and other companies are determined to take that spot from you. Using proven, ethical techniques to improve your rankings, even when your site is at the top of the list, is necessary.
2. Buy search engine pay-per-click ads or improve your existing campaign.
If you’re relying solely on search engine optimization to attract customers, you’re putting all of your eggs in one basket. A paid search campaign can increase traffic to your site dramatically, even if your site is ranked #1 for your niche search term (I have data to prove it).
A #1 or first page ranking can also cause business owners to lose focus on their pay-per-click marketing efforts. I advocate the Rimm-Kaufman Group’s recommendation to evaluate your search engine marketing campaign at least once per year. If you have a smaller campaign with a monthly spend under $10,000, you should even evaluate your program every quarter.
With both paid and natural search engine programs running at an optimal level, you’ll lower your risk of a big drop-off in business.
March 14th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Case study: Why you should pay for search engine advertising when you have the #1 spot in Google : Web site effectiveness blog: Rick Whittington Consulting says:
[...] As a follow-up to my last post, “When Google rankings affect your small business’ bottom line,” I wanted to provide some real data for my claim that a web site can get a significant increase in traffic by paying for search engine advertising even though they have a #1 search engine ranking for their niche search term. [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 1:17 am
Shell Harris says:
Hi, Rick.
Of course you should always continue to build strategic links with a variety of methods such as articles, press releases, blogging and so forth, but more importantly you want to link to interior pages (deep linking) and multiple keywords. Think of your link building like an investment portfolio. Diversify, diversify and diversify. Our clients weather all the storms due to this philosophy.
May 21st, 2007 at 5:17 am
Janis Pettit says:
Hello Rick,
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