Why is SEO important

I received this question during a presentation I was giving on linkbuilding and reciprocal links. The consultants I was working with were trying to figure out how to sell SEO as an important item, to create a need when the client could not recognize the need. This is an industry that (in general) is not very web savvy: healthcare and hospitals.

So, I had to lay it out:

• Everyone uses the web as the main place for research - not yellowbook, not the library, not television or newspapers. I didn’t even list a source, I just mandated that to be true.
• If 80%+ people discover websites through Search Engines, then optimizing for search engines become very important.
• Your online presence is not any different from your…actual presence. It is an experience of your hospital, often the first impression that a future patient has of your hospital - and that is why it is important.
• What people place in their search field in search engines is a question. The sites returned in the Search Engine results pages (SERPs) is an answer. Being on the first page of answers is critical for being found. You can’t play if you don’t play, meaning you can’t be a relevant answer for that searcher if you can’t be found in the first place.
• The difference between old marketing (TV, radio, billboards) versus new marketing (website, email newsletters, SEO, SEM) is that online activities related to their website is absolutely measurable.
• The second difference between old marketing and new marketing is that the web is completely user-driven, meaning a person puts in the search field “Roanoke, VA hospitals” they are specifically looking for relevant results for those search terms. They are prequalified for that search, and if your site fits that criteria then you should care about showing up on those terms. This is magnitudes different than putting up a billboard and hoping that a person driving by will need your medical services.
• If you DON’T do SEO and your competition DOES, then the Search Engines will unapologetically eat your site out of the SERPs and effectively off the web.
  

These are the reasons why websites and SEO is important.

SEO is a zero sum game

What do I mean by that? What this means is that when one site moves to a #1 ranking, another site moves to #2. If you move up, then you have eaten your competition’s lunch. Like Daniel Day Lewis’ character in the movie There will be Blood says, “I drink your milk shake! I drink it up!”

Moving your site up in rank directly relates to traffic growth. Google spilled the goods a couple times, and some smart people translated those findings into the value of rank and how it translates into traffic. By moving your site from 6th to #1 you can effectively drive 10x more traffic to your site. 

On a chart comparing our competitors to the site I was working on I saw an interesting phenomenon: as the client’s site moved up a particular competitor moved down in an almost mirror image in the charts. I could see that we were “stealing” rank from the competitor. It was clear to me that this is also what I had to watch out for: If your competitors are doing SEO and you are not, Search Engines will unapologetically weed your site out of existence. 

 And if you were not on the first page of results, you might as well be nonexistent. Scratch that: If you are not in the top 3 positions your site may as well be nonexistent. And that makes sense, doesn’t it? What users place into the search field is a question, and if that question is answered in the #1 site returned why would they click on #2?

Why Google is your homepage

More than 80% of sites are initially discovered through Search Engines.

But don’t believe me, I got that stat from Forrester Research and Georgia Tech’s GVU Center User Surveys.

What does this mean?

What this means is that your home page is really not your home page, Google is.

Have you ever tried getting to deep content using your link structure? Meaning clicking from link to link to get to something 3-4 levels in? If your site is like most sites your usability sucks and it brings your visitors to tears. I know that on most of the corporate and e-commerce sites I am on, when I try to find a particular product or deep page I ignore their convoluted link structure and go straight to Google.

A great tool is to use the “site:” modifier in the search field. This works in Google, live.com (MSN), and Yahoo. What this does is limit your search to a particular domain. Sooo, an example would be:
“site:amazon.com harry potter”. The search engine will then limit the search string to a particular site.

Now, Amazon has a pretty decent search function. The search field is prominent, and has a dropdown for filtering search results. But many sites handicap themselves by having a retarded search function. Check out UCompareHealthcare.com (http://www.ucomparehealthcare.com/). Their search function has 4 search fields. What the hell? And just try to use their link structure: first it makes you pick a type of search: state, Specialty, or name. After that  it took me 5 clicks to get to a particular doctor. Shoot me now. I would much rather go to Google and do a search on: “site:UCompareHealthcare.com dr. lammoglia”. Gee, I immediately get 10 links that I can look through. Having 4 search fields in this era of Google breaks the first rule of usability:

“Don’t make me think.”