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By Scott Buresh
What follows is a condensed version
of a conversation that happens all too frequently
when I am approached by a prospect interested in search
engine optimization (SEO):
Prospect: We
need our website optimized, because we aren’t
showing up for any searches.
Me: What searches have you tried?
Prospect: We don’t show
up for ANYTHING.
Me: Why do you want to show up in
searches?
Prospect: Well, it seems like
we should. Our competitors do, and our website is
WAY better than theirs.
Me: But, really, what would you stand
to gain from showing up prominently in search engine
results?
Prospect: Well, we could get
more people who are looking for our products or services
to find out about us.
Me: So, what you are saying is that
increasing your search engine results could help you
to increase sales and awareness?
Prospect: Yes.
Me: Now we’re on the right
track. Since your goals are to increase sales and
awareness, have you thought about not only improving
your search engine rankings, but also getting more
people to take an action on your site that leads to
a sale, getting more people to read your press releases
or whitepapers so that they can consistently associate
your company with your offering, or sending your prospects
a regular newsletter to reinforce your name and expertise?
Prospect: Didn’t you hear
me? Our website is great. We just don’t show
up for searches.
And so it goes.
A consistent problem with the “ranking-centric”
mindset demonstrated above is that it doesn’t
reflect a powerful rationale for getting involved
in SEO. Where is the true business case? What tangible
results are desired? In general, if a prospect can’t
explain what he or she hopes to achieve beyond “higher
rankings” or “more traffic,” we’ll
first try to educate, and, if that person can’t
move beyond these base subjects, we’ll kindly
refer them elsewhere.
More and more frequently, people
are getting into SEO for the wrong reasons (and sometimes
for no real reason at all). Achieving high rankings
for targeted keyphrases, while an admirable and worthwhile
goal, is really only a small piece of the entire online
marketing puzzle. In this article, we’ll discuss
a few additional, but equally vital, pieces.
Website Conversion
Website conversion is the art and science of getting
more of the people who come to your website to take
the action that you want them to take – fill
out your contact form, read your whitepapers, sign
up for your newsletter, or (in the case of e-commerce)
buy something. For a company that is trying to build
offline business, this action is typically something
that gets prospects into the sales pipeline through
some form of online registration. For a company or
organization that is trying to build awareness, this
action can be a number of things – getting visitors
to a certain page of the site, getting them to stay
longer at the site, or getting them to tell a friend
about the site.
The critical point that is commonly
overlooked in a ranking-centric mindset is that no
number of high search engine positions will address
the real problem if your website is not serving as
an effective marketing and sales tool. And, as I have
said many times before, the overall net effect of
raising your conversion rate from one to two percent
is the same net effect as doubling your traffic, and
it is almost always easier. Increasing the number
of visitors to a site that does not convert them effectively
is like pumping high performance gasoline into a car
with engine trouble – it might help the car
to run a little bit better, but if you’d done
repairs before adding the premium fuel, it really
would have hummed.
Online PR
Your website is only one potential online destination
where people can find out about your company, and
a typical user will regard your site as an advertisement
since you have complete control over the content.
With optimized press releases and expert articles,
however, you can have your company name mentioned
on popular news sites and industry portals, where
credibility is more inherent.
Optimized Press Releases
Press releases that are optimized to appear when certain
terms are typed into news search engines are an excellent
way to build name recognition and credibility. If
someone is taking the time to look for news related
to your industry, he or she is probably either in
your business, learning about your market, or writing
a piece about your industry. The last category is
especially significant since a recent study* indicates
that 98% of journalists go online daily, 92% use the
Internet for article research, and 73% use it to find
press releases. Whatever motivation a person has when
he or she searches for news related to your industry,
you want your company represented in the results.
Expert Articles
Another great way to promote your expertise and business
is to write expert articles and submit them to the
leading online publications in your field. At least
one person in your company is almost certainly an
expert in your field – why not let everyone
know that? A person that reads an expert article published
on an industry portal, and who subsequently clicks
through to the website (from the link in the expert’s
bio) is extremely targeted and already has a favorable
impression of your company. Moreover, the same study
cited above found that 76% of journalists go online
to seek news sources or experts. When your company
has demonstrated that you have experts on staff by
publishing articles in credible, non-biased forums,
the phone invariably starts to ring. Your experts
will be asked to provide their opinions, quotes, or
experiences for feature articles, often in prestigious
industry publications. The benefits of this, of course,
do not need explanation.
A side benefit to both of the strategies above is
that they increase the number of inbound links to
your website and, therefore, can help greatly enhance
your search engine rankings – which might be
the primary reason you looked into SEO in the first
place.
Newsletters
Direct mail was once considered a marketer’s
dream – but email newsletters can be much more
effective. Imagine a direct mail list with a low delivery
cost, where every single person on the list has shown
an interest in receiving such mailings. Such is the
nature of opt-in email newsletters. People have shown
enough interest in your company, or, at least, in
what your company has to say, to invite you to communicate
with them on a regular basis. They are essentially
giving you permission to keep yourself “first
in mind” whenever they are considering your
products or services. Such opportunities are rare
in the marketing world. By combining the conversion
principles you have applied to your website to your
email newsletters, you can also get people to take
an action that puts them into your sales pipeline
without worrying about getting them to your website
itself.
Conclusion
These are only a few of the additional ways to expand
an online initiative beyond a misdirected ranking-centric
approach. Weblogs (or blogs) are often considered
another new frontier in online marketing, and we haven’t
even touched on paid media opportunities such as banner
ads or pay-per-click marketing. However, the three
components mentioned above are important elements
of a complete and successful online marketing initiative.
An SEO campaign launched without considering them
is like driving a four-cylinder car with only one
cylinder firing – it will move, but you’d
definitely reach your destination more quickly –
and more smoothly – with all four.
© Medium Blue 2007
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