Forget SEO– It’s All About Conversion!
Forget SEO– It’s All About Conversion!
By Stephen Munday
WhichSEO hat do you wear? Is it white or black? Or perhaps it’s a subtleshade of gray. Well, wherever you are on this spectrum, if you are like99% of the SEO-fixated webmasters out there, you are doing all you canto get visitors to your site. Where you used to optimize your keywordsmeta tags, you now worry about anchor text and XML site maps.
So,you finesse your site, schmooze the algorithm du jour and begin toclimb the slippery search engine rankings pole. But this is where youhave to leave your SEO tricks behind and start thinking conversion.
Whoathere! Conversion? That’s all about making sales on shopping sites. Mysite’s a forum! I don’t sell anything. What has conversion got to dowith me?
Everything, my friend. Everything….
SERP Conversion
Youwant visitors to come your site, right? That’s why you climb greasySERP pole, after all. (And why you lay awake at night wondering whenthe next Florida, Hilltop or Bourbon algorithm earthquake is going tohit.) But what does it matter if you reach the peak, but no one clicksthrough to your site anyway?
The fact is that you have toconvert prospective visitors even before they arrive. You have to piquetheir interest, tweak their curiosity and make sure they click yourlink and not the other guy’s. And all you have to use are words. Notechnical tricks will help you now– your only tools are plain ol’words.
The SERPs will show words from two of three places. Two of these you can control and one you can’t:
1.Your title tag.
2.Your meta description tag.
3.A directory description.
(For example, Google is known to use DMOZ descriptions in their SERPs, and Yahoo uses their directory descriptions in theirs.)
Now,there’s not much you can do about how Yahoo or DMOZ editors describeyour site, so don’t worry about number 3. But do what you can do: Placeyour value propositions clearly in 1 and 2, and use them to luresearchers into your website.
So you have to convert people before they even get to your site. But that’s not all…. You want them to stay, right?
Flash Conversion
No,this has nothing to do with being blinded by bright lights on the roadto Damascus. Nor am I telling you to go and make a 100% animatedwebsite.
This“flash” is that split second, that tiny window ofopportunity that opens up when a searcher arrives at your site anddecides whether they have actually found what they are looking for… ornot.
Typically, you’ll have a couple of seconds to persuade thenew visitor to stay and hang out. That’s all you get. It’s the ultimatein speed-dating. So, how do you wow your“date”? Do you show him a pageof scraped“content” interspersed with Adsense ads? Not if you wantthis to be a lasting relationship.
Follow these tips and be sure to impress your“date”:
1. Have a clear theme
Ranking high for“blue widgets”? Then be sure your visible title, copy and images are clearly focused on them.
2. Have a clean design
Imagineyou are taking a first date to a movie. Do you pick her up wearing yourpajamas in a dirty, trash-filled car? Or do you clean the car, washyour face and dress to impress? Of course you want to impress her, soyou make sure you look (and smell) good.
It’s the same withyour site: Clean design, a nice text size and pages that don’t scrollfrom here to eternity are going to float your first-time visitor-date’sboat.
3. Write clearly and focus on your“date”
Waffle onabout yourself and your date will get bored. She wants you to beinterested in her. And in terms of your site, that means giving herwhat she wants to know as quickly and succinctly as possible. Thiscomes down to your ability to write and communicate. So, if you arelike Steve Martin in“Roxanne”, make sure you get a someone else (acopywriter) to compose the lines to wow your“date” for you.
OK,so let’s say you have successfully wooed your first-time visitor date.He’s here and he has decided to stick around. You’re going steady,getting to know each other a little more. That’s all you want, isn’t it?
No, it isn’t! You want to pop the question, of course!
Getting hitched
You’vemade all this effort and spent money on getting your“date” this far,so you want to get the most out of your investment, right? You want tohear those sweet words,“I do”:
I do… want to click your Adsense ads. I do… want to become a forum member. I do… want to buy that cool digital thingy.
So how do you turn a whirlwind romance into a successful proposal? Try these ideas for size:
Have clear navigation
Youwant to make your date dizzy with excitement, not frustration! Makesure you have clear, consistent, well-labeled navigation and make yourvisitor-date’s time with you a pleasure, and not a reason to reach forthe Advil.
Have a clear proposition
What do you want yourvisitor to do? Buy something? Sign up for something? Join something?Whatever the point of your site is, it does have a point, right? Sodon’t beat about the bush, and don’t hold back waiting for the rightmoment: Make your“proposal”, and make it clear and direct.
Happily Ever After…
Youthought that was the end of the story? Wait a minute, it’s not overyet! I thought you were in this for a long-term relationship, not a onenight stand?
I know, you were thinking that having made allthat effort while you were dating, you could ease off now that you’re“married”. But don’t you know that the real rewards start here?
So what are the secrets of a long, blissful relationship with your visitors?
1. Feed them!
Youconvinced him to come visit once. But how often will he come back ifall you give him are the same old leftovers? Cook him up somethingjuicy and delicious, and have him salivating for more:
Enlivenyour content with new, relevant pages and, not only will you set thesearch engine robots drooling, but you will also find you have a hoardof visitors coming back for seconds. And in this age offast-(visitor)-food creation tools called blogs, there’s really noexcuse anymore.
2. Shower them with gifts
Everyone likes a gift - and not just on birthdays, anniversaries and at Christmas:
Moneytalks, and if you are selling anything through your site, thendiscounts and other offers to previous visitors and customers will drawthem back like magnets. Throw in tempting freebies as well and you willhave a potent marketing mix.
3. Send them“love” letters
Anyonewho has been in a long-distance relationship (like my wife and I werefor a year and a half), knows that if you can’t be together, the nextbest thing is a letter or email. For your website, this means aninteresting ezine that is light on sales pitch and rich in information.
4. Start a family!
Notliterally! But you can create a“family” atmosphere by adding a forumwhere your visitors can interact with each other– not just with youand your site. People are social animals, so use a forum to keep themcoming back.
OK, so perhaps I overstated it a little in mytitle. SEO is not dead, so don’t forget about it quite yet. Justremember that it will only get you so far: If you want to actuallyachieve anything with your site, then you need to focus on conversionlike a laser.
About the Author: Stephen Munday lives in Japan. His most recent project ishttp://www.japanese-name-translation.com/where you can get your name in kanji or buy a beautiful personalizedJapanese calligraphy. This article is© Stephen Munday 2005 and mayonly be reproduce as a whole with hyperlinks intact.
Source:www.isnare.com
