Does anyone use overture for SEO leads?

[SEOptimism]

Not sure where to ask this kind of question, but thought I'd start with the Overture forum. Let me know if there's a better place for this.

I recently dedicated a couple hundred dollars to a PPC campaign at Overture to gain some SEO client leads and found the more common terms too rich for my blood and my budget at between $3 and $9 dollars for some of the more competitive terms.

I stuck to the terms hovering at around $1 to $2 dollars where I could be in the top three positions. I've got 35 active terms I'm bidding on.

Well in three weeks, I've received only 3 clicks on terms going for anywhere from 49 cents to $1!

There are literally thousands of terms to bid on and they are all reasonably priced but the most obvious things like "Search Engine Optimization" at $4 max bid. I tried this previously and wiped out my budgeted account in a couple days with no leads to show for it.

Realizing that I'm asking my competition for advice here, what has worked for you in the past if you've used Overture to gather leads for your SEO work?

[Tom Parish]

I understand ...

It takes real money to maintain a viable campaign for SEO work at Oveture now. The big dogs have bid up the the good keyword phrases.

Yes - a smart strategy is to look for lots of less obvious keyword phrases but given other SEO's know how to do this, its likely those are not so cheap.

The real deal is - how does your site convert? Do you have something for free information-wise that captures that shy yes?

Do you make an effort to get them on a mailing list (multiple times) at your site? Free consultation ... you get the idea.

Most folks looking for SEO help for their website(s) are pretty nervous about being taken. It's complicated and there is a REALLY wide range of responses they get from SEO'ers halking their services. Building some trust along the way is important.

Here's a strategy for you I used. Try a PPC like Kanoodle or one of the other second tier guys. I tried their free $5.00 offer and signed up for a bunch of the SEO type keyword phrases. They were 1/10 to 1/5 the cost of Google and Overture PPC rates.

The upshot was I got some calls and one piece of business. But it has not been a steady process. Again, people are looking for answers to problems - and a real person they can trust. It takes time.

All the best

[SEOptimism]

Thanks Tom. I agree about the need to convert visitors when they do show up. I have another couple of sites and a newsletter meant specifically for that purpose, but this campaign is focused purely on my new sales site at http://SEOptimism.com .

I do have a newsletter link at that site which subscribes you to my WebSite101 newsletter at http://WebSite101.com/arch/ and a link to my search engine tutorial site at http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/ but wanted to test a site meant ONLY for sales.

I've got a partnership with a couple of marketing firms that subcontract my SEO services, so most of the time I don't need to do sales. But I wanted a sales oriented site in place so that the more lucrative client direct work might come in from the web.

Overture was my pick for PPC simply because I've been promoting them through a link on my other sites and got a couple hundred $ reward for promoting Overture. Their method of payment is to give you the dollars in Overture advertising rather than pay you directly. It's essentially free money, I just can't see throwing it away on the high dollar search phrases. At the rate I'm going though, it will take a couple years to spend the money. :)

I've got a promotion with Kanoodle running on my WebSite101 front page but hadn't gotten around to trying it myself yet. Maybe I will, but still want to spend the Overture reward money wisely.

[Tom Parish]

ok - good input. I understand better now your situation.

Tell you what - here's one of my tips. I assume you have webalizer running on your websites or you do some kind off offline log analsysis of your traffic.

Over the period of 4-8 weeks look at the searchengine keyword phrases people use to fine you now.

People use the darndest keywords sometimes. For example: "website visibility seachengines" ... you get the idea. Look for all the odd balls ones. Collect all of those in a text file and use them at Overture. They will all likely be in the ten cent range. See how that goes before burning up the high flyer keyword phrases. Remember these are just the people that found you with hard work. Make it easy and you'll likely see more traffic with the same keywords.

I see you write - a lot. I scanned your 101 site. Great articles BTW.

Either write articles or create mini theme pages that uses these keyword phrases - maybe a form of FAQ for the site but aimed at bringing traffic from these less then popular keywords phrases.

I suppose you use WORDTRACKER ... if not that's good source of keyword phrases people use that the Overture tools don't see. You'll find some ideas spark there for your 'less the obvious' keyword campaign.

Good luck
Tom

[ihelpyou]

Real good advice Tom! :thumb:

[Tom Parish]

Thank you Doug :D
Appreciate it.