MarketingSherpa Blog

MarketingSherpa reader Barry W. Dennis of Netweb/Omni wrote me today, “I participate in all or most of the Paid ranking services by Google, etc. Because my competitors want that Number 1 ranking as well, they overbid me, and I do it back.

One decision point is when the Cost Per Click exceeds the Gross Profit or other measurement of the value of that customer. The second decision is whether overpaying for a customer is worth keeping that customer from a competitor.

At some point, overpriced advertising leads smart marketers to reassess their usage. We are getting there at this time on Paid Rankings, and it will get worse in the next twelve to eighteen months.”

His solution? Increase site content and optimization to get better organic listings instead of relying on paid clicks.

If you’re considering the same thing, here are some of my favorite content ideas to add as static (not dynamically-generated) pages to your site:

#1. Topical glossary: Especially great for tech marketers.

#2. Topical Q&A: Grab common questions from customer service, from your booth at shows, from prospects, and post them with keyword-rich answers on your site.

#3. Press releases: Ask your IT department to revamp the PR and IR sections of your site so it’s a series of static pages (and not a dynamic area or hosted by a 3rd party service). Then start posting your releases regularly — you’d be shocked how few companies remember to do so.

#4. Email newsletter articles: Post them as static pages too, and make sure the headlines are keyword-rich instead of “December 2003 Issue”, etc.

#5. Blogs: Often, especially in larger companies, you may have employees writing work-related blogs that the marketing department is only half-aware of (if that.) Make sure these are also tied into your site map and architecture, without destroying the blog’s look and feel as a personal ‘non-corporate’ communication too much.

And please, let me know what you’re testing and how it works!

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