Aims and Objectives of Search
Engine Optimization Campaigns

Search Engine Optimization is generally held in highest regard for its high ROI and cost efficiency over other marketing endeavors. However, search engine optimization is also a very versatile marketing technique.

Search engine optimization can be used to serve a number of different marketing objectives and not just the single purpose of drawing highly qualified sales leads to a website.

Naturally, the most common objective for search engine optimization campaigns is to bring in targeted leads to ecommerce sites. A high degree of pre-qualification is possible, since SEO allows you to attract only those who are actively seeking for very specific products or information.

While most sites wish to pre-qualify leads, there are still a few sites that simply want traffic, pure page impressions, for broadcast advertising purposes in the main. Typically such sites are based on advertising revenue, and they simply want to sell as many banner impressions as possible.

This is not a strong business model, because unqualified leads rarely stick long, and create very poor click-through rates. Advertisers soon choose to spend their banner budget on sites that give higher click-through performance.

A less common, but very effective use for search engine optimization is to focus on sales rather than traffic. In this mode, the SEO campaign will typically use very specific search terms, and variants that emphasize buying and selling over simple information.

This model of SEO is still suitable for advertising based websites, but typically those of an affiliate nature where sales and click-throughs are of more importance than just impressions.

The traffic from this form of search engine optimization is lower than that of traffic campaigns, but the conversion rates are far higher, and indeed can give industry-leading performance on such metrics.

The least common of all SEO aims is that of maximising brand awareness. In this form of optimization broader search terms are often targeted, but the nature of the listings is designed to promote brand or product awareness rather than actual traffic.

This technique is ideally suited to companies that provide products or services that are unlikely to draw a sale from most of the people searching for information on a casual basis, but a specialist service that people should be aware exists for the occassion when they may finally need it.

Think of companies specializing in resetting passwords on laptops where the password has been forgotten or lost. Such a company may benefit from targeting search terms such as "laptops" but would rarely see a sale from such referrals. So, this SEO campaign seeks to make the listing in the search results itself spread the message, and enforce the brand of the company, so that the listing is seen and remembered far more than it is actually clicked.

Search engine optimization is not just about traffic. SEO is a marketing tool that is capable of refined use to support any marketing objective that a company may need. Identify the specific primary aims of your campaign before you begin optimization, and then tailor the optimization to meet those objectives most effectively.