Search Engine Optimization Should Also Consider Conversions!
January 25th, 2008 by hbond{{chris}} Search Engine Optimization should also consider conversions!
Many search engine optimization companies will disagree with me on this point because they don’t want to confuse their services (getting a site ranked for certain keyphrases) with the more difficult objective of converting the ensuing traffic into leads. The funny thing is, no matter how clear you make it to an SEO buyer that they are paying only for rankings, they will ultimately (perhaps months later) judge the success of the service not on the rankings but on how much it’s improved their business. If it’s not turning into more leads and of course more business then there is a very high probability that they will cancel their SEO services because in their mind it’s not working for them. This leaves the average SEO fuming mad because for petes sake – they delivered the services that were sold!
Let this be a lesson! Search engine optimization companies should seriously consider focusing more effort on helping clients convert the traffic that is being produced by the search engine optimization process. Some of the things that can be done to improve conversions are:
- ensure the website is professionaly designed and accurately reflects the target audience
- provide clear value propositions and calls to action in key scanning positions
- place an 800 or local number in the header of every page in the site
- place a small contact form (with some kind of incentive) on every page of the site either in the left or right hand column
- consider using a click to call service on the phone numbers
- always answer questions of privacy at every opportunity to convert the traffic – that means on contact forms, next to the submit buttons
- install analytics and setup a Goal to track conversions on the contact forms
- install a phone tracking system like WhoCalled? to track telephone conversions
This is just a partial list for the sake of this discussion. Implementing these items will go a long way to helping your customers websites convert all of the great traffic your search engine optimization efforts are sending to the site. If you make this a focus of your monthly services your customers will be satisfied and will continue wanting to improve their site over the long term.
If you’re buying search engine optimization services from an agency or individual SEO and they are not consulting with you on converting the traffic, you should seriously consider switching to one that does. It’s in your best interest to get the best value you can, and that means capitalizing on the traffic being sent to your site. That’s the whole point of search engine optimization and search engine marketing in general!
Great point – I wish SEO “experts” were ranked by conversions or could point to their success with conversions somehow.
LOL – me too! We try really hard to emphasize this side of the business for our clients regardless – it’s what they are looking for afterall!
Another important consideration regarding website conversions is that long tail keywords will generally convert better than the more highly searched terms. For instance, someone who searches for “blue jeans size 28″ is probably ready to make a purchase. On the other hand, someone who searches for clothes or jeans may have not yet decided what they plan on purchasing and may just be browsing for fun! This is why its important not to ignore long tail keywords when your trying to increase your conversion.
Thanks for pointing that out. You’re absolutely right in this regard! You can actually see this effect in your analytics by looking at the bounce rates on these long tail phrases – odds are the bounce rate is much lower.
The conversion rate is something that has always been associated with pay per click but it is starting to come across to pure SEO.
I feel this is because the clients and the implementors are far more knowledgeable that they used to be.
We at Neutralize also like to list Cost per link acquisition for the linking basics.
Thanks for that info! I agree with you completely.
Also, I’d add that ranking without conversions is useless SEO.
When you create your campaigns, you should also do A/B testing with a generic non-location-specific ad copy. In AdWords, Google will automatically auto-optimize your ad copy by doing testing in rotation and then showing the one that performs best, so you don’t need to do that work. You might discover that your Seattle specific ad rocks, but for some reason, those in Boston prefer the non-location one.
This is very true. And perhaps this might not apply much to US but here in SG, because the search volume for “hot” keywords here is so low (Singapore only has a population of 5 million), it is highly likely that you are better off paying for click thros via Adword than to pay a SEO consultant thousands for a SEO campaign.