Optimizing your site to rank higher for specific search queries entails more than on page manipulation of Meta tags, titles, descriptions and keywords. While exceptionally well branded products and services can drive sales on their name alone (eg. Pepsi, Kleenex and Xerox), the vast majority of businesses don’t share that luxury. Fortunately, the Internet levels the playing field to a large extent.
The key lies with optimizing your prospects “perception” of your brand. In much the same way that Google uses “quality scores” in AdWords campaigns to position their client’s advertisements, properly managed Omaha Search Engine Optimization campaigns, like those contracted to Omaha SEO Companies can increase their client’s perception of value. Higher perceived value of your company directly translates into brand awareness, increased sales activity, jumps in search queries and many more conversions.
Value is Perceived
Making the jump to “well branded,” the perception of your brand can be significantly improved with effective copywriting. As an Omaha Search Engine Optimization company, we suggest capturing your prospect’s attention in the first few moments after they’ve landed on your site. The more professional your presentation, the greater the odds that you’ll be able to emotionally motivate them to action.
Is Your Goal to Increase Conversions?
What fundamental elements need to be addressed to drive higher conversion ratios? First on the list is reinforcing your prospect’s existing pain. If you have a “brick and mortar” business, you can translate existing (offline) sales strategies to promote online calls to action. Those online calls to action work for you 24/7/365.
In direct sales, it’s important to ask lots of questions, and then focus on listening – to pick up on your prospects “hot buttons” or pain. In person, using the POCCAD approach works well. This means asking questions related to personnel, their organization, their current system, their current vendors, what applications they’re using, and who their decision makers are. Once you’ve exposed their pain, this allows you dig deeper so you can propose solutions that benefit both your client and your organization.
Online, this approach needs to vary slightly, although the principal strategy remains the same. Successfully exposing pain here requires performing detailed research into industry trends, doing search queries on the major search engines and in reviewing industry specific forums. Your competitor’s websites can also be a great source of information, especially comments on their blogs and info on their knowledge base articles.
Exceeding Your Prospect’s Expectations
In sales, the psychology of know, like and trust are key factors to increasing close ratios, and online to maximize conversions. Prospects judge and set their expectations of your website and your products and services against sites they’ve just left. Confused prospects never buy, so your calls to action need to be highly focused. Landing pages need to be set up that directly correspond to specific calls to action. Too many choices lead to confusion. As a note, we’re not referring to attributes like sizes or colors of the same product, but rather to diverse offerings.
The trust factor in know, like and trust addresses risk. Online, you can convey trust via testimonials. Another strategy could be to offer guarantees that compare favorably to your competition. In e-commerce, SSL certificates are essential if you’re capturing credit card information on your site (the lock icon). SSL certificates come in different sizes and flavors, and while some of them vary only by their warranties, others like Extended Validation (EV), SSL Certificates meet the highest standard in the Internet security industry for website authentication. EV SSL Certificates give high-security web browsers information to clearly display a website’s organizational identity. The high-security web browser’s address bar turns GREEN and reveals the name of the organization that owns the SSL Certificate and the SSL Certificate Authority that issued it. Why is this important? It gives website visitors an easy and reliable way to establish trust online.
The Bottom Line
Is your site perceived as professional?
- Excessive grammatical errors, broken links or content that doesn’t relate to a prospect’s search query significantly impacts perception.
- Successful calls to action embrace emotional “hot buttons” or pain that address the five senses of touch, feeling, sight, hearing and taste.
- Just ONE conversion captures your new client’s “circle of influence,” which includes their hair dresser, auto mechanic, dentist, business associates, family members, mailman, dog groomer and on and on. These are prospects you could never reach on your own.
- In other words, conversions lead to more conversions and improved activity on your website, which then translates into higher positioning on the search engines.
Contact Big Red SEO Today!
Do you have questions about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Contact Big Red SEO, a successful and efficient SEO Omaha Company at (402) 522-6468. Our mission is to help businesses be found where their customers are looking. More than ever, potential customers are searching for services in their local area. We can help you get the results you deserve.