Online marketing works a bit differently than direct or print marketing. Direct marketing either focuses on selling to people who are already in your database, or to list or segment of the population. Internet marketing gets in front of people who are looking for your product or services, but may not have heard of you at all. This involves convincing the search engines that your content is important enough to put on first page.
Let’s face it, if you sell ladies underwear the 13 year old boys that haunt your site are not buying what you are selling. If that is all the traffic you have, it doesn’t matter to your bottom line (so to speak) if you have a million site visits a day. So what you need to know is how to reach the people who are interested in buying what you sell.
SEO is the research that lets you know who your customers are and what they need to hear to be inspired to buy your product. This research can let you know if your traffic matches your customers, where they come from, what age they are, gender, time of day they visit, and what key words and concepts they respond to. On top of that, SEO can also tell you what keywords you rank for, what words your competition is using, and how well it works for them.
Really understanding what your customers are looking for and who they are allows you to write directly to your best customers. You must also convince the search engines to list you for the keywords important to them.
Search engines look for important content, keywords, and content that matches what you sell and shows you know what you are talking about. Customers look for something that appeals to them, that is knowledgable about their concerns and can convince them have found what they need.
These needs overlap. Your writing will have the keywords that customers search for, the tone and information that appeals to them. This focused writing is check by the search engine algorithms. If it matches what they want to hear, it moves closer and closer to the front page of search.
Your goal is to be top of the front page on the keywords that matter most for your customers. These words are not necessarily the words that you thought were important, but rather the words and phrases that bring your ideal customers to buy, call or act.
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