CTA Conference 16 Expert Insights

16 Expert Insights on Conversion Rate Optimization from CTA Conf

Finalizing our CTA Conference recap comes this aggregation of all of our actionable takeaways which should help you with conversion rate optimization.

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The Secret to Getting a Head Start on SEO

It seem like almost every week we get an inquiry from a company that is interested in SEO services and website conversion optimization but not initially interested in running Pay-Per-Click. There’s by no means anything wrong with this, but a consistent problem that we are presented with is that most of these companies’ websites receive far too little traffic to get high-quality, actionable keyword data for SEO, or to be able to do website conversion optimizations based on any statistical significance.

If we were to only provide SEO services to these clients, the limited data available would make optimizing for SEO a long drawn out process with website traffic gradually increasing over time as organic search rankings improved.

What most of these clients, and many companies that only provide SEO don’t know, is that running Pay-Per-Click is the secret to getting a head start in SEO.

There are too many elements from PPC that we include in our SEO strategies to mention so I’ll just go over the big picture:

1. We Use PPC to Do What SEO Can’t

With PPC we are able to instantly increase traffic to a website. Right away we are able to show client’s ads high in search engine results and bring in new customers.  Website traffic and conversions pour in along with that high-quality, actionable keyword data for SEO that we’ve been looking for.

2. Great SEO Starts With Great Keyword Research

PPC accounts are an SEO keyword gold mine! We get access to data that tells us exactly what users are typing into search engines that result in purchases from the client’s website!  With PPC we are able to optimize our SEO for traffic and conversions based on statistically significant data.

For some great info on how to leverage PPC data for SEO, check out this post by Tom Demers.

Recommended Internet Marketing Books

I get asked all the time “how did you learn PPC and SEO?” Well you should probably read at least two books in any internet marketing field just to learn the basics. That way at least when you start reading blogs you will be able to spot the snake oil BS that is all over the net. I highly recommend the following books:

1. “Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing: An  Hour a Day”
by David Szetela is actually on my desk as we speak.

2. “Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies”
by Peter Kent was my first PPC book

3. “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies”
by Peter Kent was also my first SEO book

4. “Web Analytics: An Hour A Day” and 5. “Web Analytics 2.0”
by Avinash Kaushik
I don’t care how long you have done web analytics for, you can still learn a lot from both these books.