You’ve spent months preparing for this day. You’ve analyzed traffic and conversion trends, tweaked your website and landing pages, experimented with different offers, and rolled out comprehensive email marketing campaigns. You’ve done everything you can to improve your online marketing performance and now, finally, the day of reckoning is here! But is it enough to simply meet the minimum requirements of a “good” web site?
The short answer is no, it isn’t. Not even close.
What you need is an SEO plan that will help you achieve your long-term marketing goals, grow your traffic, and convert that traffic into paying customers.
What is an SEO plan, and why do you need one?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of enhancing your website’s online presence so that it appears in the search engine results when someone searches for relevant keywords or phrases. When your website appears in the search results, you’re able to drive traffic to your site from people who are actively looking for your product or service.
Why are you driving traffic to your site? Is it because you’ve just launched an ecommerce store and are looking to gain some initial traction? Or perhaps you’ve been doing business with clients locally and want to gain some newfound exposure?
Regardless of the reason you’re seeking to drive traffic to your site, the fact remains that you need to attract, engage, and convert this audience into paying customers if you want to grow your business successfully. And, to do that, you need to make sure that your site appears in the search results when someone types in keywords or phrases that are relevant to your content.
For example, let’s say you’re an interior designer and you want to rank for the keyword “interior design.” You might try something like this:
Add some keywords for the product you sell (e.g., “furniture,” “upholstery,” “carpeting,” etc.),
Add some more keywords for the services you provide (e.g., “custom interior design,” “small kitchen design,” “bathroom design,” “bed room design,” etc.),
Add some more keywords for locations (e.g., “Seattle,” “Portland,” “San Francisco,” “Los Angeles,” etc.),
And, finally, add the name of your business (e.g., “Urban Nomad Studio,” “Blue Ocean Design,” etc.).
When someone types in “interior design” or a similar phrase, your website should pop up in the search results with compelling content that is optimized for your chosen keywords (and, ideally, those keywords are mentioned multiple times in the content itself).
To see how this works, type in “interior design” into Google and see how many results you get. Now, compare that to how many results you get when you type in “interior decorator.” Clearly, “interior design” is a more popular keyword and there are a lot more people searching for it than there are people searching for “interior decorator.”
What did we just cover here?
Creating an SEO plan is pretty straightforward. You first need to identify the phrases or keywords that you’re going to use to identify your website’s target audience. For example, let’s say that you run a photography business and you want to rank for the keyword “photography.” You might try something like this:
Add the keyword “photography” to the names of your products (e.g., “portrait photographer,” “product photography,” etc.),
Add the keyword “photography” to the services you provide (e.g., “boudoir photo shoot,” “family photo shoot,” “event photography,” etc.),
And, finally, add the name of your business (e.g., “Urban Nomad Studio,” “Blue Ocean Design,” etc.).
When someone types in “photography” or a similar phrase, your website should pop up in the search results with compelling content that is optimized for your chosen keyword (and, ideally, those keywords are mentioned multiple times within the content itself).
Create Multiple Channels Of Communications
You’ve got one channel of communication with your existing customers and you’re utilizing that channel to keep them up to date on new product offerings, promotions, and events. But, what if you’ve got thousands of potential customers that you haven’t been able to reach?
How do you bridge the gap between your existing and potential customers? You create additional channels of communication. These are methods that you can use to engage with and, ultimately, convert your audience into paying customers. Some of the tools you can use include:
- Blogs
- Shopping Carts
- Social Media
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Video Marketing
- Online Forums
- And the list goes on
For example, let’s say that you run a photography business and you want to rank for the keyword “photography.” You might try something like this:
Add the keyword “photography” to the names of your products (e.g., “portrait photographer,” “product photography,” etc.),
Add the keyword “photography” to the services you provide (e.g., “boudoir photo shoot,” “family photo shoot,” “event photography,” etc.),
And, finally, add the name of your business (e.g., “Urban Nomad Studio,” “Blue Ocean Design,” etc.).
When someone types in “photography” or a similar phrase, your website should pop up in the search results with compelling content that is optimized for your chosen keyword (and, ideally, those keywords are mentioned multiple times within the content itself).
Use Keywords In Your Headline
This is a pretty easy one. When you’re writing your headlines, you want to incorporate your chosen keywords into the headline. If you don’t do this, you’re effectively losing out on a lot of potential traffic. For example, let’s say that you run a photography business and you want to rank for the keyword “photography.” You might try something like this:
“Photography For Dummies,” “The Beginner’s Guide To Product Photography,” and other similar headlines usually get a lot of attention because they’re not only catchy but they also incorporate the keywords “photography” and “dummies.”
When you use keywords in your headline, you’re not only ensuring that your articles and blog posts will be relevant to my chosen keywords but you’re also making sure that they’ll be relevant to the article or blog post’s contents. If you don’t do this, you may end up losing potential customers due to poor search engine placement. It’s all about getting found!
Add Your Website To Online Directories
There are a number of online directories available that can help your website’s SEO. These are online locations that people can browse to discover content similar to what they’re looking for. If you get listed in these directories, it can help pull traffic to your site from people who are looking for your products or services. Examples of search directories include: