SEO: How To Gain Conversions Without Selling
Face it, the market is becoming more saturated by the day and everyone wants to make it in the online marketing world. According to Google Trends, SEO interest is on the rise. However, it has gone from Search Engine Optimization to Search Experience Optimization. Do you want to have services and products that convert? Then create attention getting, understandable and findable content.
The State of Search Marketing Report projects 26.8 billion sales will come from the SEO and online marketing industry in the year of 2013. Just recently SEO has been evolving so if you are thinking of stopping your SEO campaign, think again! Search is all about your reputation and how carry yourself as an online brand. The content your organization puts out there will determine how searchable your website is online.
The Content Lifecycle
We know that content comes in a few different forms. There is paid content, owned content, and earned content. An example of paid content would be print, magazines, and TV. Owned content includes: emails, webinars, blogs, and communities. Earned content includes: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, Google +, Instagram, Slideshare, Quora, Pinterest, and Wikis.
There are short-forms and long-forms of content. Short-forms include articles, press releases, and How-tos. Long-forms would include eBooks, white papers, and other special reports.
The content that your business creates should be based on your audience, objective and message. We want to create content that will evoke emotion, engage the audience, stir a discussion, create a community of loyal customers, and bring participation on all your social channels.
How do we know if our content is worth reading? We have to monitor and analyze how many shares we are getting on the content from the different social channels. In addition, look at the amount of comments we are bringing in. Monitor the comments and respond to them as soon as you see them. We want to come off as reliable content writers towards our audience. My content success formula: Reliability = More Trust= More Loyal Customers!
How Marketers Can Meet Their Customers’ Needs
The first thing you want to do is assess their current standing in the Internet space. We start with their back link and productivity using tools such as: UnPengu.In , Link Dectective, Majestic SEO, Opensite Explorer and/or Link Detox.
The next thing we usually do is run a content audit using: Screaming Frog or Content Analysis Tool so we can understand their content strategy and any other SEO technical issues with their website.
The last thing we check is their competition with these resourceful tools: Google Adwords Keyword Tool, SEM Rush, SEOMoz, and/or Social Crawlytics
Note: Your presentation is everything when it comes to winning your customer’s heart.
Marketer’s Guide To A Successful Presentation
We use different proposal software programs to make our proposal look professional. Here is a list of our favorite ones: BidSketch , Proposable, Entilli, and QuoteRoller.
Then we bullet point our client’s goals, time line to meet their expected goals, our deliverables, and the expense (if necessary).
Note: Create proposals based on your client/decision maker’s interest. Add items that will close the deal from their perspective. In order to close the deal, you must be willing to educate your client more than your competitors are willing to.
Proposal Check List:
- Client Needs (Goals, Objectives, Expectations)
- How You Will Reach Their Goals (Process)
- What Should They Expect? (Deliverables)
- When Should They Expect It? (Timeline)
- What Will It Cost Them? (Budget)
- What Are Your Policies? (Terms and Conditions)
- What Else Do They Need To Know? (Comments)
Presentation Day Necessities: Make sure the client meets you at your office! If you don’t have one make sure you rent one out for the day. You will want to dress professional, but acknowledge whom you will be working with as well. For example, if the culture of the business is fun and trendy then dress for it! Make sure you add graphs and charts to your proposal to make it visually appealing.
Notes: Find out what your competitors are charging for the same services. Try to close a retainer over fixed pricing (more secure results.) Make sure you are well educated when it comes to the market and the industry. When you price too high or too low you will face major problems. Do your research first!
Our Last Words:
- Don’t accept clients who demand outrageous results in a short period of time. This will only cause you to lose a client in the long run. Educate them to prevent this from happening.
- Don’t just sell rankings. Try to sell your client conversions and traffic to their website. In addition, you also want to sell them leads.
- Business is business, you can’t trust anyone. Make sure you have a good attorney at your side just in case anything goes wrong.
Anything else you want to add?
