HELP: Analysing data to make decisions, SEO vs PPC

[edward-may]

Hi mozers!

I have recently been seeing good results in the serps lately for my main keywords in my country NZ, now I'm seeing good results in Australia for these keywords and our USA domain is not far behind and making good progress...  However, our NZ results show that we may get around 1 conversion every 3 days from our organic search.  I read other places that click share for ppc was much higher, but there is no way we can match our competitors budgets from 3k - 300k per month.  So our option was to focus on SEO.  To me, the SEO results seem quiet low, however I'm not really sure how to go about diving deep into the analytics of it all to find out where I need to improve or focus on, which keywords are bringing these conversions.  Maybe I need to go for long tail keywords etc... It seems my rankings are coming from general keywords which are still highly competitive, but even so, we are not performing to what I know we should be.  Our competitors are mostly paying ppc, however I was told my ROI would be better spent via SEO.

Any suggestions perhaps what I might be missing or doing wrong in this case.  (I have recently done a new design overhaul with a new registration process)

I have 3 top level domains you can see the site here http://bit.ly/1yhz96v

[edward-may]

Hi Alick300

Thanks for your update! This is great and helpful advice, I ran a few campaigns in early January ~ over 3months to find exactly what you were talking about, I took these results based on reflecting targeted keywords for our organic search, most of the searches and click throughs were coming from NZ, I just find it hard to believe that its quiet low in NZ.  So I'm not too sure whats going on there, and trying to figure out how to go about really digging into what keywords i should be targeting and really digging into.

[edward-may]

Great, thanks for all the info Patrick, I'm going to throughly read through all your recommendations and feedback if I have any questions.  Some of the testing tools I'm not really aware of and need to try them! I was told to use crazy egg - but then i was told only to use this with ppc? What do you think about this?

[edward-may]

Hi EGOL,

I'm in the top 3 for general keywords such as "online psychics" "psychics" and "relationship psychics" #4 "chat psychic readings" #5 for "online psychic readings"  the advice I had for these keywords were terms that were recommended by our SEO company at the time.  This is for NZ search.

We are ranking for #5 "online psychics" in Australia, and on page 2 for the rest.

USA - We are mainly on page 2, 3 and 4 for the above keywords - this is obviously due to the fact that the market is more competitive in USA, and we haven't been launched for very long.

If you rank below #5 and there are a lot of ads, then I would keep hammering at it and work on title tags that elicit clicks.  If you are in the top three in the organic SERPs for keywords with a lot of traffic then it is time for assessment.

What would you recommend a good way to go about assessing these terms?  Changing title tags can you recommend how to go about finding good title tags, and how to track the progress of the title tag changes and how this would effect the change?

Cheers and thanks for your help!

[Alick300]

Hi Justin,

I have also gone through the same case that you are exactly facing now now I'm telling you how I handled this.

I have started PPC campaign with purpose of keyword research and search volume so I have started with very low daily budget and my aim was to appear on page one only at (e.g position 5-7) because I don't want users to click on my ad frequently, just wanted to know the number of impression for each keyword.

I have run campaign for 3 months and I spend less that $100 and I got several new keywords to target with high search volume and low competition.

So If you can run campaign only for new keyword research that will be helpful for you and it won't cost you much.

I presume you are aware of search term list in Google search console (Google webmaster tools).

If you have semrush paid account you can find organinc and paid keywords of your competitors and many more things.

I'm sharing one article how can you use semrush tool effectively.

http://www.robbierichards.com/review/competitor-research/

Hope this helps you.

Thanks

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Justin

I personally like utilizing both SEO and PPC channels - the reason being, you can learn a lot from each to influence the other.

For instance, through SEO, you can get an idea of varying queries and keywords you are appearing for and which pages are performing best in search. From there you can prioritize content development and page design or layouts, and experiment with driving traffic to those pages through PPC to a. get eyes on it and b. see how your audience is engaging.

Also, PPC is also a sometimes an underutilized brand awareness tool that can be used in a variety of ways to get your name and content out there. It's also great for building relationships with other industry websites, opening doors to new audiences and opportunities.

Google provides a great tool that can help you better understand how users interact with websites in your industry; I suggest you check it out!

What I would do is this - take a benchmark of your site, from traffic to rankings:
Where are you big win areas?
Where are you big loss areas? 
Where are the bottlenecks on your site? (Check out Google Goal Flow and Hotjar)
Where are your competitors having the most success? (Here's a great resource on getting organic/paid data)

From there, take an unbiased assessment of your site - what content is helping users and what isn't? Are you providing the answers that users are looking for when are they searching? What kind of content does your audience usually digest and where are they?

Take this time to prioritize what needs to be done on your website and where you can improve. Based on your research, what is the best way to reach your audience and experiment with new content or layouts? Is it through paid? There are always opportunities in paid - especially if you find some longer queries that your competitors aren't bidding on.

You don't need a $3,000 to $300,000 budget - don't instantly think there's nothing you can do! You just need to research your audience, assess your site, prioritize pain points and opportunities, and create the best possible web experience for your audience - you might be missing some big opportunities on bidding on longer tail queries and testing your newly developed SEO content.

Also - whenever you plan on trying a new feature, make sure you test it first, so that you know it's the best possible feature for your users!

You got a lot to gain here! Hope this all makes sense - good luck!

[EGOL]

What positions do you hold in the organic SERPs?

Are you in the top three for what you perceive to be big money terms?

How many ads are stacked above the organic SERPs?

If you rank below #5 and there are a lot of ads, then I would keep hammering at it and work on title tags that elicit clicks.  If you are in the top three in the organic SERPs for keywords with a lot of traffic then it is time for assessment.

our competitors budgets from 3k - 300k per month.

How reliable is this?