Ten times as much money is spent on paid ads on search services like Google as is invested in search engine optimization, yet both methods convert browsers to buyers at approximately the same rate, according to Jason Billingsley, vice president of e-commerce technology vendor Elastic Path Software. What’s more, he adds, free listings are clicked on up to 200 percent more often than paid ads.How do you make your Web site “organically” pop up in the first five results of a potential customer’s Web search? Billingsley offers three suggestions for improving a site’s organic search results:
1. Search-engine-optimize your press releases. A few services offer help. PRWeb, for instance, conducts keyword research to find at least two relevant search terms that a company’s target audiences are likely to use for a news search. It then edits the press release, optimizing it with the relevant search terms so it will rank well in Google News. PRWeb also builds links from a press release to relevant content on the company’s Web site. PR Newswire offers Search Engine Visibility, reports that let customers see what keyword combinations Web visitors used to arrive at their news releases. PR Newswire also lets customers see how many times news release readers took the next step and clicked through to the customer Web site from a URL embedded in the news release.
2. Use Froogle. Free product inclusion into Google’s comparison shopping engine often brings surprisingly high-ranking results. (more…)