SEO: 3 Steps to Sales from SEO

by Jackie Kiadii

There's more to success with search engine optimization than getting on the first page of Google or Bing. If you want your search engine optimization efforts to lead to more sales, make sure you follow these three steps.

Step 1- High Ranking Position

Positioning is what most people think about when they hear the work "SEO." It is, simply put, where your website shows up in search engine results. Most companies are happy with a placement on page one - I strive to have my clients show up in multiple places on the first page.

When it comes to positioning, there is something else to consider. You must make sure that you are positioned for the right keyword phrases. Unless 1,000 people a month are searching for your name, ranking #1 for your name, while good, will not maximize your sales. In order for your high ranking to lead to more sales, you must be ranked for the keywords your best prospects are likely to use when they search for your services.

Step 2 - Click-Through

So there you are, with your site on page 1 of all of the major search engines. Like 10 wallflowers waiting for someone to ask for a dance, the 10 sites on page 1 are waiting for the prospect to select one to click.

If a prospect does not click through to your site, there won't be a sale. So, the second step in garnering sales from search engine optimization involves making what prospects see in their search results so compelling, they cannot help but click through to visit your site.

Step 3 - Conversion

Once your prospect lands on your web site, what would you like for them to do? Are you going to go for a home run by getting them to immediately sign up for your service?

While going for this conversion goal might be the shortest route to a sale, you run the risk of turning away 99% of your traffic (longer term prospects). Would you rather offer them something of value in exchange for their contact information and permission to continue to market to them? This may be the savvier route.

As anyone who has studied marketing knows, it takes, on average, 7 touches to convert an interested prospect to a sale. While someone who visits your website for the first time may not be ready to buy immediately, they may be in the market a few months from now. In the meantime, they may be able to refer you business. To maximize your conversion rate, have a conversion goal and lead your prospects towards that goal.

For additional information

• Atlanta SEO Bootcamp - Get More Traffic
• Small Business SEO Packages
  

About the author:

Since 2001, Jackie Kiadii has shown business owners how they can attract more traffic to their websites, and use that traffic to generate more sales. Her company offers 1-on-1 SEO training, group SEO bootcamps, as well as SEO services.

Thanksgiving and Marketing your Blog - Similarities

by Jackie C. Kiadii, MCP

What does your Thanksgiving turkey have in common with your online marketing? One word - leftovers! Turkey soup, turkey tetrazzini, turkey casserole, turkey salad. Even though Thanksgiving was almost a week ago, I am sure some of you are still finding ways to serve the last of the leftovers.

In the online marketing world, we call it re-purposing content. Once you create content, an imaginative marketer can find almost unlimited ways to use it.

Here is a quick case study.

A client hires us to help improve her website's search engine ranking. One way to improve search engine rank and lead conversion is by adding quality content. Here are at least six ways to use one blog post.

Version 1 - Create a keyword rich, lead generating blog post. A lead generating blog post is high quality content, crafted to speak to the needs of her best prospects and clients.

Version 2 - Use services such as twitterfeed or hootsuite to automatically feed the blog post to twitter, linkedin, and facebook. The beauty of this is we set this service up once and only have to change it if her login information changes.

Version 3 - Does she have prospects who will appreciate this information? If so, we encourage her to share it with a personal note. Showing she is tuned into a prospect's needs is a subtle way of following up.

Version 4 - She can't forget about her clients! She can share the blog post with her clients and include personal notes with specific ideas for incorporating the tips.

Version 5 - We help her reach more people by offering the blog post as content to other bloggers. Creating quality content takes time, and many bloggers will happily accept content that they know will appeal to their target audience. If you'd like to implement this step, start by reaching out to bloggers in your network to see if they are interested in your content. Always include a brief bio section at the end of each blog post so that the new audience knows how to reach you.

Version 6 - Convert her blog post to video, and post it on youtube. Why youtube? Youtube is one of the top 3 search engines, and is also in the top 3 for smartphone users. Video versions of the blog post can be posted on youtube to reach an entirely new audience, and this process is not as difficult as you may think.

This is really just the tip of iceberg - I can easily think of at least 5 more ways to share. I hope this gives you a few ideas on ways to get more mileage out of your blog posts.

Photo source: AndyNash on Flickr.

MS Word Tip for Article Marketers.

Works with Microsoft Word 2000 and 2003


Writing articles is an excellent way to boost your search engine position. (For additional information on article writing as a SEO strategy, see my class Using eMarketing to Grow your Business.)

Whether you submit your articles to print or online publishers, a publisher will usually give you a word count limit.

Here are a couple of ways to count the number of words in your document.

The traditional way.

Go to your Tools Menu, and click on WordCount.



This works great, however, wouldn't it be more helpful to have that word count right in your document, so you could easily see it as you're working on the document?

Here's another way to update your word count, frankly, it's the method I prefer.

Click the Insert menu, and choose Field.

When the dialog box pops up, select the NUMWORDS code. This box shows the MS Word 2003 version, Word 2000 is slightly different.



This pops a field into your document that shows the number of words in your document.

Here's the key to making this work -- make sure the code is at the bottom of your document. You'll soon see why this is important.

Whenever you want to update the number of words in your document, put your cursor anywhere in the field and hit F9. Since the NUMWORDS field is the last item in your document, you're always only a couple of keystrokes away.