SEO experts have burst onto the SME marketing stage recently with success stories, buzz words and technical know-how to impress and confuse even the sharpest business owner. With SEO experts ruthlessly focused on getting that top Google slot, it’s understandable that business owners get caught up in the hype, invest thousands in SEO strategies and then are disappointed with their bottom line results. This is because often those with the SEO know-how, unlike business owners, don’t understand the art of creating and closing a sale, they just know how to get your potential customers in the online door. The following tips will ensure that your SEO investment ends up in sales success for your business.
There are four key synergies that your SEO strategy must have with your overall sales strategy and web presence. Getting the right keywords optimized, having a user friendly site, a clear and valuable offer of your service prominently displayed and running targeted email marketing strategies will ensure that the SEO art of lead generation builds the optimum launch pad for the harder gig, ecommerce.
SEO Tip 1: Get the Right Keywords Optimized
Keywords are how the customers that are already looking for your service/products find you. If you have the wrong SEO keywords optimized you will get the wrong people (not customers!) to your site. Don’t fall into the trap of believing a less relevant keyword with higher Google traffic means greater exposure, if they’re not after your product/services they won’t turn into customers, and therefore your investment in optimizing for those keywords is wasted. Rather you need to identify and invest in the right keywords for your products and services.
SEO Tip 2: Have Well Designed User Friendly Website
Once your highly ranked website is clicked on, you need your new customers to land on a webpage that is easy to understand, quickly educates them about your product/services and then effortlessly guides them towards point of sale. Consider what your customers need to know about your company before they would buy from you – is it a description of your product/service, a clear statement of your unique selling point, customer testimonials or industry reviews? It’s probably a range of all of these, but one fact web designers and SEO experts often miss is the understanding a business owner has of their own sales process. Is the next step of the sale to contact your office for a meeting or more information? Then make sure you have an obvious link to contact us in your perpetual navigation. You need to have well designed website that replicates the in person sales process but offers more information along the way.
SEO Tip 3: Place a Great Offer that is easy to find
You know why your product/service is the best, but for effective SEO and ecommerce, you need to make sure that your website visitors understand this fast, before they click off to a competitors page. Promoting your killer offer is different from informing your customers about your product. Effective SEO and a well designed website will situate this information in a compelling but not confusing way.
Very successful websites have their great offer prominently displayed and use the “find out more” hyperlink or button, for a full product/service outline. Your offer needs to be on your home page or a bright banner or button that commands attention. The offer is the “sale sign” that convinces your customers to buy. SEO that turns into sales always leads the customer to your offer quickly.
SEO Tip 4: SEO plus Email Marketing Strategies Equals More Sales
An effective way to ensure you’re constantly staying ahead of your competition is to keep your customers coming back to your site. Not only does staying in regular contact with your customers build trust and your relationship with them, it also strengthens your SEO efforts leading to more sales. This could be through a regularly updated and topical blog (also an ideal place for adding more of your keywords to your site), through sales, a newsletter, free white papers and resources or competitions. Email marketing campaigns are also a great way for customers to easily promote you to their friends; you’re only a “forward email” click away from a new customer!
So if you want to invest in the best possible SEO strategy for your business, make sure you don’t take your business understanding out of the equation. By targeting the right customers through optimizing for the right key words, welcoming those customers by having a well designed site, closing those sales with an outstanding offer in an obvious place and boosting your SEO success with email marketing strategies, your SEO efforts in lead generation will translate into sales effortlessly.
