Mediaboss Marketing

The money youre able to make from a top position in search engine result pages (SERPs) often determines the effort you're willing to take. Search engine marketing (SEM) is maturing and now that there is little secret sauce left it comes down to ability and willingness to put in the required effort. Increasingly the ability to make money from a particular keyword is the key to successful search engine optimization (SEO).

The ideal situation for ranking on any type of search results is getting clearer and clearer. Where there used to be many shortcuts, Panda offers a great example where low quality SEO and guerrilla tactics are no longer as successful. Only unfair ranking factors like exact match domains keep SEO from being a level playing field, but its getting there.

In a market where everybody should spend the same effort for the same result it all comes down to how much effort can you take? SEO effort is determined by a lot of factors which eventually all come down to money. If you make enough money you can even buy a top ranking website to re-use their positions and traffic.

Although your competitors might have a head start, they did put in the effort once. If you're currently gaining on them, you can probably predict how much effort is still needed before you beat them.

Before you overtake all the top positions of your competition, think about the following: You should avoid an arms race! If they are currently in a comfortable situation they can probably increase their effort while you are still catching a breath from just getting there. Sneak up to them and only overtake highly monitored keywords once you are breathing down their neck.

There will always be a big difference in the ways certain companies are able to use their resources. While big corporations have a lot going for them, theyre seldom flexible. They might even make less money from a top position because of this.

A small, well converting website will be able to use its creativity and flexibility to outsmart their expensive and unwieldy corporate structure. This takes SEO very close to being a level playing field.

Keyword ROIprovides a great basis for effort calculations.

When you calculate the maximum effort you can take (by looking at the money youre able to make) for you and your competitors, you can determine where they will start to fall behind. If your calculation shows they wont, you should increase the money youre able to make.

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Keyword ROI: The Key SEO Ingredient