However, there is still a large number of small business owners and marketing folks who persist in the notion that if you rank top-10 organically for a keyword (sometimes even top-20 or 30), that you shouldn’t bid for it with your PPC campaign. The reason is that you don’t want to cannibalize sales from SEO, which makes complete sense.

Except when that doesn’t happen.

Far too many times, people assume that if you’re running PPC and SEO concurrently for a given keyword, PPC is surely gobbling up sales that they would otherwise be getting “for free”. It could be happening, but how do you know? ‘Cuz you better KNOW. In this age of ultra-online-trackability-for-free (thank you again, Google Analytics), why would you assume anything with your business on the line?

Let go of the assumptions, mostly propogated by SEO-philes and SEO-only agencies looking to pad their numbers (you bet I went there).

You have to apply the mantra of online marketing–TEST IT.

A few questions to help you find out what’s really happening:

Have you tested both scenarios (SEO only, SEO and PPC together) long enough to get statistically significant results?

You can’t run both for a week (unless you get a whole heapin’ heck-a-bunch of traffic to your site) and expect to KNOW if PPC is robbing from SEO. You have to test each scenario until your pile of data is bulky enough to be conclusive. Make sure, however, that you’re not testing through seasonal highs and lows that might skew your results.

Are the conversion gains from PPC+SEO noticeably above your SEO-only totals? Are they within your efficiency thresholds?

If you answered ‘yes’ to both of those questions, you should keep running PPC. Even if PPC appears to take a small slice of your conversions from your SEO efforts, who’s going to argue with more overall profitable conversions?

Are your competitors bidding on your high-ranking SEO keywords?

You’re not doing this search thing in a vacuum. Your competitors are trying to make you homeless and they’ll happily accept you not bidding on your SEO sacred-cow keywords so they can skim more PPC conversions for themselves at a lower cost. Something to think about…

It’s all about the data!

I’ll forego the discussion on conversions that result in recurring revenue. Suffice it to say that if customers re-up with no further acquisition cost, this should never have been an issue in the first place.

And let’s not get into the opportunity you have with PPC campaigns to generate more focused content for a landing page that would convert better than just some deep link on your website.

For now, let’s stick to the simple truth that we can all afford to live by–When you can track it, always test it. Always.

When it comes to their business website, too many small business owners still cling to the false notion of, “If you build it, they will come.” The idea is that having a web presence will get the job done. Put up the site, get the products on there, slap the logo on it and watch the sales roll in, right?

Once upon a time, when the concept of a business website was fresh and exciting, that may have been true. But times have changed. You can’t crank out any old website and expect customers to magically line up like the cars leading to Ray Kinsella’s remote baseball field.

If you build it, they will not always come.

Unlike those snake-charmed baseball fanatics, your potential customers won’t go miles out of their way to buy what you’re selling and they won’t put up with a website that makes the buying process uncomfortable or the least bit confusing. Customers will project the quality and user-friendliness of your website onto your business as a whole, so you have to make the process of interacting with your website clear and easy—as easy as humanly possible.

When your website becomes confusing, slow, or tedious, you will lose people in droves. This idea is commonly referred to as website friction. The noted online testing firm Marketing Experiments defines “friction” as “psychological resistance to a given elements in the sales process.”

Your task is to figure out where friction on your website is costing you sales and make changes to alleviate it. Common examples of friction are:

• A cluttered page layout that buries important information
• Slow load time
• Unclear or ineffective calls to action
• Unclear explanation of value proposition
• Message mismatch from ad or link to landing page
• Poor product images and/or description

This list could go on for many pages, but you get the idea.

This idea is particularly important for SMBs because most businesses in this category are competing for customers without the momentum of a big brand name. Big brands have achieved a measure of trust that can sometimes push site visitors through small points of friction because they ultimately trust the brand.

Odds are that you, as a small business, do not have that luxury with 90% of your site visitors. When things get the slightest bit inconvenient for someone navigating your website, most visitors will leave and take their wallets with them. You haven’t achieved the trust of a big brand and must do so through the customer’s experience with your website.

If your business will realize its potential, you must commit to analyzing your website traffic and adjusting your website accordingly. Only then will your pay-per-click, SEO, email and other traffic generation efforts produce the results you hope for.

Today I found the Mayo Clinic’s Facebook page (and an article on their online marketing strategy at 1to1 Media). And talk about a cool title – they have a “manager for syndications and social media.” Maybe I could trade in my “seo evangelist” title for something more like “social media marketing manager” here at OrangeSoda.

Here’s a quote from the 1to1 article on why the Mayo Clinic has a Facebook page: “Consumer self-expression brings authenticity and impact…If consumers are happy with their experience with the Mayo Clinic, and they tell others, it will undoubtedly help Mayo to grow its reputation and market presence.”

Notice how they used their name in the URL. Then they post stories from blogs (put a Google alert on your name and track your company or organization online). They also inserted RSS feeds to news and health information.

This is obviously for branding and for relationship-building.
Besides their reasons for building a Facebook Page, the Mayo Clinic is proactively building a strong reputation online.

When people search for them in search engines the results are full of quality information and web sites that reflect well on the company. That’s something every company should aspire to build.