Hamilton Buchanan can provide a thorough audit of your SEM efforts and provide recommendations for improvements in organic traffic and conversions. We will analyse your paid search campaigns, keyword and content strategies as well as your on and offsite SEO efforts.
The scale/extent of SEO Audits are agreed upfront and charged on an hourly basis at R500 per hour.
SEO and Paid Search (Pay-Per-Click)
SEO and Paid Search (PPC) are our core service propositions. We generally approach a client project using a series of distinct phases which we describe here:
Phase 1- Project Set-up & Onsite Phase
We aim to define your on-going SEO strategy via a 2-3 hour face-to-face client workshop and then by conducting thorough Keyword Research & Planning, conducting a detailed Site Audit and by recommending onsite SEO improvement to an existing or new site.
Timing: 2 weeks
Deliverables:
1) SEO strategy based on agreed workshop outputs,
2) Keyword research and defined Keyword list,
3) Site Audit Report & onsite recommendations
Pricing: R10,000.00 (excluding travel costs)
Phase 2 – Monthly SEO support (on and offsite SEO)
Our agreed retainer will stipulate the agreed number of hours per month we invest as the bare minimum support. Anything we invest over and above those hours is based on earning an agreed incentive scheme. A detailed timesheet will be provided at month-end along with our progress report.
Monthly activities include:
- Advanced link-building efforts to generate quality external inbound links.
- Directory submissions.
- Various onsite and offsite SEO optimization initiatives.
- Competitor site retro engineering and research (mapping competitor SEO footprints).
- Set / check monthly keyword position targets, strategy updates, client reporting, fielding client queries etc.
- Monthly report indicating progress by keyword, tiers or categories or ad campaign (PPC).
- Building unique link-building properties that allow quality external inbound links.
- Monthly call with your Facebook Fan Page Manager to agree topics, themes and levers for content / Social Media.
- Monthly face-to-face or Skype meeting (2 hours maximum).
- All other client interactions will be done via Skype and email unless agreed otherwise.
New site – SEO set-up and launch
A new site launch differs from the set-up required for an existing site as there are fundamentally more inputs required from our side. We will discuss inputs will be required and provide a detailed quote for the services identified. Perhaps you prefer to adopt a User Centred Design approach versus a typical graphic design led approach?
A typical new site launch project would contain:
- Pre-launch check on site Design & Usability plus recommendations for improvement.
- Check prototype for SEO friendliness.
- Check Conversion friendliness & suggest basic improvements.
- Recommending areas for content refinement.
- Generating keyword list for your copywriter(s) & keyword copywriting (if required).
- Providing guidelines for keyword copywriting / checking final copy for SEO compliance.
- Generating H1-H6 tags.
- Generating unique meta data descriptions and unique title tags for top 100 pages.
- Deeper, low traffic pages to follow a formula for meta descriptions.
- Supply your webmaster for implementation.
- W3C code validation.
- Submission to Search Engines for indexing.
- Set up Google Analytics.
- Set up Goals within Analytics.
- Final pre-launch flight check.
Timing: Dependent on size of project / number of inputs required
Deliverables: Dependent on the inputs required…
Pricing: Minimum project value of R15,000.00
Pay-Per-Click (Paid Search)
Pay-Per-Click (or Paid Search) often works in partnership with organic search. In certain instances, you will not be able to garner page 1 rankings due to the sheer competition for a particular keyword and in these instances it makes perfect sense to pay for your position on a search engine results page. We’re organic SEO purists by heart so naturally we will steer you towards building your organic SEO footprint as it’s cheaper in the long run, garners more clicks than paid search and builds your brand equity.
Hamilton Buchanan aims to optimize your PPC campaign based on your budget whilst simultaneously improving your Click Through Rate (CTR) which in turn reduces your Cost Per Click (CPC).
Our approach to PPC follows a phased approach described below:
Extensive Market Research – We utilize spy tools to see what your competitors are doing. We find low CPC keywords with high traffic volume, determine which ad copy to use and how to structure your landing page for better conversion rates.
Keyword Research - We make sure that your ads appear for all potential clients, by researching every possible keyword that your target audience might use (i.e. synonyms, homonyms etc.)
Granular keyword structure and organization - We build a very tightly themed ad groups and keyword structures, created to closely resemble your business and your advertising goals, allowing easier optimization and management later on and higher Quality Scores which lead directly to lower costs per click.
Advanced Content (Display) Network Campaign setup & optimization - We utilize a unique strategy for the content network (display network), including re-marketing campaigns, banner campaigns, expanding into other content networks like AdMob and the DoubleClick platform. Mobile PPC Marketing – Go Mobile using AdWords Mobile targeting campaigns & adMob’s platform. It’s grown into a large market in many niches already. Same principles and methods apply.
A/B Split Testing – Testing two ads per ad group against each other, testing two landing pages against each other is seen as critical. This habit guarantees a rising conversion rate curve for your project. We use Google’s Website Optimizer or Unbounce for this particular task.
Optimization and Account Management – Daily account monitoring which includes: keyword optimization – finding new rich converting keyword variations and removing non-converting keywords from the account.
Ad copy and landing page level optimization – onstant monitoring for the split test’s results, replacing low performing versions with new ones.
Analytics and Adwords Conversion Tracking – Setting Goals, analyzing QS performance and weekly reporting in order to improve overall CPC.
Our once-off fee for the set-up is R1,200. Our monthly management fee is 5% of your monthly Adwords budget. (Our minimum fee is R1,500 per month)