We All Know The Value Of Repetition, Right?

I know that we’re kind of fun and laid back (comparatively speaking) here on SC’s SEO Blog, but let’s put on our Common Sense Hats for a second.

We all know the value of repetition, right?  When I taught writing, I’d use repetition in my notes and PowerPoint presentations to increase my students’ retention. From repeating a phone number to yourself over and over until you can write it down (I know you do it) to playing an improvised guitar riff over and over until it becomes second nature, repetition has a lot of power to influence our thinking and memory.

We all know the value of repetition, right?

Good.

A lot of e-trepreneurs focus only on Paid Search when it comes to marketing their Web sites.  It’s easy to control and monitor (if you’re as good at it as our Paid Search team is) and it presents quick, quantifiable results — results that won’t make you antsy as you wait for them to pay off.  But if you monitor your PPC performance, you’ll notice that not enough people are clicking your ads.  You need more clicks.  How do you get them?

Repetition.  We all know the value of repetition, right?  If you’re ranking on the first page of the organic results (the “left side of Google” for the non-search-savvy) and in the first page of sponsored links (the “right side”), then that repetition is going to reinforce the connection your brain is making between the query they typed in and your business.  A stronger connection means a higher likelihood of clickthrough.  Clickthrough places them in the funnel that leads to conversion.  And everyone likes conversions.

Common sense, like I said.  Except not so common, really.

Internet Retailer has an interesting tidbit of research: 72% of Fortune 500 companies don’t show up on the first 10 pages of organic results for terms that they place highly for on the pay-per-click side of the page.  “Yeah,” I hear you thinking, “but they’re Fortune 500 companies.  They don’t need to have a viable search engine presence because they benefit from strong branding and word of mouth.”  That’s true, but knowing a brand and finding its Web presence without the aid of Google or Yahoo are different tales entirely.

Being Fortune 500 companies, they’re probably doing okay without additional organic search revenue, but think about this – they could be doing better, and another thing that everyone likes is exceeding expectations.  Don’t discount SEO just because you have a strong Paid Search campaign; in fact, that’s a great reason to start considering SEO.