Forget SEO Its All About Conversion!

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Forget SEO Its All About Conversion!


Which SEO hat do you wear? Is it white or black? Or perhaps its a subtle shade of gray. Well, wherever you are on this spectrum, if you are like 99% of the SEO-fixated webmasters out there, you are doing all you can to get visitors to your site. Where you used to optimize your keywords meta tags, you now worry about anchor text and XML site maps.

So, you finesse your site, schmooze the algorithm du jour and begin to climb the slippery search engine rankings pole. But this is where you have to leave your SEO tricks behind and start thinking conversion.

Whoa there! Conversion? Thats all about making sales on shopping sites. My sites a forum! I dont sell anything. What has conversion got to do with me?

Everything, my friend. Everything.

SERP Conversion

You want visitors to come your site, right? Thats why you climb greasy SERP pole, after all. (And why you lay awake at night wondering when the next Florida, Hilltop or Bourbon algorithm earthquake is going to hit.) But what does it matter if you reach the peak, but no one clicks through to your site anyway?

The fact is that you have to convert prospective visitors even before they arrive. You have to pique their interest, tweak their curiosity and make sure they click your link and not the other guys. And all you have to use are words. No technical tricks will help you now your only tools are plain ol words.

The SERPs will show words from two of three places. Two of these you can control and one you cant:

1.Your title tag.
2.Your meta description tag.
3.A directory description.

(For example, Google is known to use DMOZ descriptions in their SERPs, and Yahoo uses their directory descriptions in theirs.)

Now, theres not much you can do about how Yahoo or DMOZ editors describe your site, so dont worry about number 3. But do what you can do: Place your value propositions clearly in 1 and 2, and use them to lure searchers into your website.

So you have to convert people before they even get to your site. But thats not all. You want them to stay, right?

Flash Conversion

No, this has nothing to do with being blinded by bright lights on the road to Damascus. Nor am I telling you to go and make a 100% animated website.

This flash is that split second, that tiny window of opportunity that opens up when a searcher arrives at your site and decides whether they have actually found what they are looking for or not.

Typically, youll have a couple of seconds to persuade the new visitor to stay and hang out. Thats all you get. Its the ultimate in speed-dating. So, how do you wow your date? Do you show him a page of scraped content interspersed with Adsense ads? Not if you want this to be a lasting relationship.

Follow these tips and be sure to impress your date:

1. Have a clear theme

Ranking high for blue widgets? Then be sure your visible title, copy and images are clearly focused on them.

2. Have a clean design

Imagine you are taking a first date to a movie. Do you pick her up wearing your pajamas in a dirty, trash-filled car? Or do you clean the car, wash your face and dress to impress? Of course you want to impress her, so you make sure you look (and smell) good.

Its the same with your site: Clean design, a nice text size and pages that dont scroll from here to eternity are going to float your first-time visitor-dates boat.

3. Write clearly and focus on your date

Waffle on about yourself and your date will get bored. She wants you to be interested in her. And in terms of your site, that means giving her what she wants to know as quickly and succinctly as possible. This comes down to your ability to write and communicate. So, if you are like Steve Martin in Roxanne, make sure you get a someone else (a copywriter) to compose the lines to wow your date for you.

OK, so lets say you have successfully wooed your first-time visitor date. Hes here and he has decided to stick around. Youre going steady, getting to know each other a little more. Thats all you want, isnt it?

No, it isnt! You want to pop the question, of course!

Getting hitched

Youve made all this effort and spent money on getting your date this far, so you want to get the most out of your investment, right? You want to hear those sweet words, I do:

I do want to click your Adsense ads. I do want to become a forum member. I do want to buy that cool digital thingy.

So how do you turn a whirlwind romance into a successful proposal? Try these ideas for size:

Have clear navigation

You want to make your date dizzy with excitement, not frustration! Make sure you have clear, consistent, well-labeled navigation and make your visitor-dates time with you a pleasure, and not a reason to reach for the Advil.

Have a clear proposition

What do you want your visitor to do? Buy something? Sign up for something? Join something? Whatever the point of your site is, it does have a point, right? So dont beat about the bush, and dont hold back waiting for the right moment: Make your proposal, and make it clear and direct.

Happily Ever After

You thought that was the end of the story? Wait a minute, its not over yet! I thought you were in this for a long-term relationship, not a one night stand?

I know, you were thinking that having made all that effort while you were dating, you could ease off now that youre married. But dont you know that the real rewards start here?

So what are the secrets of a long, blissful relationship with your visitors?

1. Feed them!

You convinced him to come visit once. But how often will he come back if all you give him are the same old leftovers? Cook him up something juicy and delicious, and have him salivating for more:

Enliven your content with new, relevant pages and, not only will you set the search engine robots drooling, but you will also find you have a hoard of visitors coming back for seconds. And in this age of fast-(visitor)-food creation tools called blogs, theres really no excuse anymore.

2. Shower them with gifts

Everyone likes a gift - and not just on birthdays, anniversaries and at Christmas:

Money talks, and if you are selling anything through your site, then discounts and other offers to previous visitors and customers will draw them back like magnets. Throw in tempting freebies as well and you will have a potent marketing mix.

3. Send them love letters

Anyone who has been in a long-distance relationship (like my wife and I were for a year and a half), knows that if you cant be together, the next best thing is a letter or email. For your website, this means an interesting ezine that is light on sales pitch and rich in information.

4. Start a family!

Not literally! But you can create a family atmosphere by adding a forum where your visitors can interact with each other not just with you and your site. People are social animals, so use a forum to keep them coming back.

OK, so perhaps I overstated it a little in my title. SEO is not dead, so dont forget about it quite yet. Just remember that it will only get you so far: If you want to actually achieve anything with your site, then you need to focus on conversion like a laser.

About the Author

Stephen Munday lives in Japan. His most recent project is a Japanese name translation website where you can get your name in beautiful Japanese calligraphy.

This article is Stephen Munday 2005. Permission is given to reproduce this article in whole with the URLs correctly hyperlinked.

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Finding the Right SEO Company


I often talk to people who have lost faith in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms because of bad experiences. Either they saw no results, felt that they were tricked into subscribing to a service that could not work, or that they wasted money on a firm that did them no good. Although I agree that there are bad SEO firms out there, I know that there are also many good ones. Its your job to make sure you find an SEO firm that will work for you.

Search engines are the basis of Internet existence and survival. Recent studies have concluded that over 90 percent of all web surfers use search engines to find what they are looking for. Thus, in order to be successful on the Internet, your website must be search engine friendly. If people who search the Internet for your products or services are not finding your Web site, you need search engine optimization (SEO).

Now some of you may take on the task of optimizing your own sites. For those people, there are plenty of how to articles on the Internet that can help you. If you need more help, drop me an email and Ill give you some ideas. However, many webmasters decide instead to let an SEO company handle their marketing. Search Engine Optimization is a full time job, and many companies need to hire someone to do it for them. If this is your intent, you should know what to look for, and what to watch for, when selecting the right SEO company.

1. Make Sure They, and Their Clients, are Successful and Well Optimized

If your SEO company does not rank high on most major search engines under their specific services, then they probably wont have the ability to get you high ranking on yours. For example, if youre located in Boston, your SEO company should at least rank on the first page in Google, Yahoo, and MSN under such search terms as Boston SEO, Boston Internet Marketing, Boston Web Marketing, or even Boston Web Design. If you found them through pay-per-click or sponsored listings, this only means that they do not have the ability to optimize their own websites and are forced to pay for their clientele.

In addition, it is a good idea to check the success of their clients. All SEO companies have a client listing, if for no other reason than to offer front page links to their big spenders. Take a good look at these clients sites. Check for quality of content and keywords. View the source and see how well the meta tags are structured and how well they apply to the content given. And most importantly, go to the major search engines and find where these clients land on the search terms they are targeting. If the SEO company has created a successful marketing campaign for each of its clients, chances are youre looking at a good SEO firm. However, if neither the SEO company or its listed clients have high rankings, I would recommend you find a firm that does.

2. Make Sure Someone Answers the Phone or Responds to Email

Although this may sound funny, I cant stress how important it is to find a SEO company that will be there when you need them. Before choosing an SEO company, call them. If they pick up, youre in good shape. If they dont pick up, but call back within 2 hours, youre still looking pretty good. If it takes you a handful of phone calls and emails, or a number of days to get a response, you might be in bad shape.

Say youve just received a new product that you would like to market. Say that product is seasonal, only for the holiday season, and your ability to sell it relies on the timeliness with which you can get it seen on the search engines. You need a company that you can contact to put immediate marketing efforts to your new pages and products. If it takes 3 to 4 weeks for your SEO firm to make changes and improvements, you might want to look for a company that can keep up with your fast-paced business and demanding customers.

3. Make Sure They Understand How Search Engines Work

Keeping a website at the top of the search engines has become a science. The best search engines frequently modify the way their databases list Web sites, and constantly change the search criteria used to find and present web pages.

To understand the quality of a companys search engine optimization services, you must first understand how search engines work. Search engines list websites in two distinct manners: pay per click listings and organically optimized listings.

Pay per click listings are the listings that appear on the top or right side of most search engines under the heading Sponsored Links, or some related term. This type of listing is paid for. Web sites that wish to get top search engine placement without optimization can pay a certain cost that is charged to their search engine accounts every time their sponsored link is clicked on by a prospective client. Cost per click rates range anywhere between $0.10 and $10.00 per search. Some bigger-budget eCommerce businesses can spend up to $50,000 a month on pay per click marketing.

Organically optimized listings are the listings that appear at the top of search engine pages without having to pay for these listings. This type of listing is free. However, your website must be properly optimized to appear at the top of all search engines using organic optimization. Search engines use unique programs which send agents referred to as spiders and robots to your Web site to collect data. Your website must be structured properly to aid these robots in their search for information.

A quality SEO firm will know how to properly structure your website for top organic optimization and, ultimately, top search engine placement. Watch out for SEO firms that take your money and invest in pay-per-click marketing. Although this will get you immediate results, it does nothing to optimize your site in the long run, will not be as profitable as an organic marketing campaign, and will keep you dependent on SEO companies for your success. And pay-per-click marketing is something you can easily do yourself; if thats the route you wish to take.

4. Make Sure They Follow-Up with Internet Research

In addition to knowing how to optimize correctly, an SEO firm should be constantly investigating the Internets most popular search engines in order to stay aware of the latest techniques for promoting a Web site on the Internet. If they are not giving you monthly reports on the status of your listings, the increasing quantity of your links, and the number of unique visitors to your site, you might not be working with the right SEO company. These reports should not only show where your site is ranked on each of the major search engines for each of the major terms you target, but also show you how you have improved from the previous month and where your competitors stand.

5. Make Sure You Constantly Know What Theyre Doing

The major problem most people have with internet marketing guys is that they dont see them everyday. Its not like these guys come into the office everyday, or even sit down with the boss for a daily conference call. Most of them work out of their homes, spending 12 hours a day on the computer. Now Im not saying that they will take your money and do nothing for you, but its good to keep your eyes on them like you would any employee. On the days that they work for you, have them send you day-end reports detailing the pages they optimized, the content they added, the keywords they marketed, and the links they added. This will allow you a better understanding of what they do on your clock, and allow you to keep your eye on their progress and effectiveness.

Overall, you can find a good SEO company. There are hundreds out there. But it is your responsibility to make sure you find the right one. Dont just pick the first firm you find, then complain when you see no results. Find your results before you hire any SEO company, and you will put your business on the right track for Internet success.

Nathaniel Long is an Internet marketing specialist for Allied Internet Productions, a Denver-based web design and marketing company specializing in graphic and flash design, internet marketing and search engine optimization. Visit their site at http://www.alliedinternetproductions.com, or call them toll free at 800-935-1820.

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Dont Make the Top 30 SEO Mistake


SEO consultants will tell you that you need to be in the Top 30 or you can pretty much give up any hope of getting a visitor to your web site.

Yes, there is truth in that Top 30 goal. Occasionally, a potential customer will make his or her way to the #30 position in search of a particular product or service. The odds just aren't that high.

Yet, industry research and ongoing search engine user behavior analysis shows that most people will focus on the first few results. Who can blame them? It takes a great deal of patience to wade through the rest of the options.

It's going to mean a great deal more if you can get that prized search term in the Top 10 (first screen) or even the Top 3 or Top 5 with the right SEO marketing strategies.

With so much competition, is that even possible? Yes - if you're realistic. Here's the key: don't spend an inordinate amount of time in the single keyword "cars" if you offer something more specific, such as "automotive accessories." You stand a much better chance of getting that coveted top spot with a more reasonable search phrase.

Don't ignore those single words if they really represent what you do. Generally, single words have a fighting chance if other SEO factors are rooting for you along the way, including pages with lots of content, options to include content up high, other pages featuring the same keyword, a domain name with the keyword, a page name with the keyword and plenty of link popularity built around the keyword. You just have to tie it all together.

Obviously, fewer people search for "automotive accessories" than "cars." But you'll be able to reach more search engine users - and prospective customers - if you frame most of your SEO strategy around specific search engine phrases that adequately reflect what you do. Join the Top 10 Club and reap the benefits.

Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO, a Cleveland, Ohio-based search engine optimization firm. He authored the U.S. Manufacturers Resist Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Online Sales Leads study and a white paper, "Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game." michael@fathomseo.com

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