New business is the corner-stone of any revenue model; with that in mind getting new visitors to your website is paramount as a prime directive for marketing and new business development.
Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for New Business Development
Although SEO is one of the most cost-effective means to deliver traffic to a website, conversion and conversion optimization are critical to capitalize on the traffic that SEO generates.
Setting the Stage for Conversion
The first step in any SEO campaign is to select the appropriate keywords. Using a broad array of keywords is ideal for getting a foothold which you can then use to siphon down to a core group of keywords which outperform others as a result of their semantic or practical inherent design.
Different phrases (such as more specific to an industry or less jargon oriented) will yield different results. The common mistake is that your customer knows as much as you do about your industry.
If you only optimize your website for industry specific / jargon-rich keywords, then chances are the only traffic you might receive is from your competitors who are also making a rookie move like this when it comes to keyword research.
The real optimization begins when you can discover keywords that have equally as much conversion as the most competitive ones, with half of the competition vying for them.
It’s not about you or what you want; it’s about what they want!
Often we think we know our audience better than they know themselves and make costly decisions to use laser-like keywords in an attempt to garner market positioning. While narrow casting may work in certain areas of marketing, when attempting to deliver relevant traffic to a website, you need to test multiple formats and eliminate the less favorable methods.
Ignore the needs of your audience at your own risk.
While you may be obsessed with one branch of keywords and keyword stemming, you may have missed the trunk or other low hanging fruit entirely. This is one reason why you need to assess the competition for your keywords in addition to your market to truly find the most traveled paths of conversion that you could funnel to your offers with the least amount of effort.
When we stop assuming and make firm decisions based on historical data (often at the expense of your larger competitors) there is no reason to recreate the wheel and try to build a market from the ground up.
All you need are three things to differentiate your website and business model from your competitors and the faster you deliver those qualifying tidbits of data, the faster you can move traffic from the visitor column into the customer column using proven conversion tactics.
What are those three things?
1) What are you selling?
2) How much does it cost?
3) Why should I buy it from you?
If your homepage or subsequent landing pages do not have some form of distinction to elaborate the fundamental triggers above, then no amount of SEO or traffic generation techniques will ever yield the results you envision or blindly anticipate.
Be Transparent
It is important to think about positioning from the standpoint of why a person uses a search engine to begin with. Be firm about passing along information that pertains to “THEIR MINDSET”, meaning the reason why they are there, not just about your company or brand (out of context).
It is easy for a company that is too close to their own project to want to toot their own horn across every page in the website, but rarely does this tactic convert as much as benefit-rich pages crafted for the benefit of the prospect.
Use qualifying statements “ONLY if it aids your conversion objective”, if your purpose is commerce. Does anyone really care if you are the biggest, best or loudest green widget maker in the west? Probably not, they are there because they more than likely already know what it is you offer, they just want to know why they should get it from you. So, don’t insult their intelligence or worse yet their intention or “poof”, that is one less viewer to track across your analytics.
Useful examples of tangible results, testimonials, signals of trust (such as the BBB seal), endorsements from notable brands, appearances in publications, etc. all can assist you in countering their inherent objections. Yet, there is nothing like a direct, unhampered call to action, one simple conversion objective and supporting images with visual appeal to seal the deal.
A fab piece of info x
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Patricia
http://dataentryjob-s.com
@ Patricia and Joanne:
Thanks, Glad you enjoy the content…
SEO is a good source to develop business rapidly…
good post…
SEO Services India
What you sell, the cost of it and a good strong usp are essential if you are to generate new business. This is why seo has such a major value in being able to develop and bring in new business.