Different research shows that the number of visitors to a given site can double, triple, or increase tenfold when a company moves up to page one. However, a correlating impact on sales occurs only if the company is doing everything else right. A high ranking is only effective if your website is user-friendly and your business is already well-managed, with good customer service, and top products and services.
The best search engine optimization (SEO) makes a website better and more useful, but a high ranking on the SERP and even a million hits on your site are useless if users do nothing but leave in frustration after they arrive.
What Makes a Website Optimized for Search Engines?
Well-Organized and User-Friendly
Every website is different, and no single, recognized standard exists that dictates navigation, format, or organization for websites. What this means to the new visitor to your site is that they must figure out on their own how to move around, complete certain tasks and get what they want. To help your users, you must create a website that is user-friendly, with a logical structure and an intuitively familiar look and feel.
Each web page must be written to stand on its own, since it may be the first place the visitor lands after a search. You do not want that visitor to feel so lost that he gives up before completing the action you want him to take. Careful labeling and navigation aids will tell users where they are and how to take action.
Call to Action
Like any good brochure or marketing piece, a website selling a product or service must contain a “call-to-action” phrase, which tells the customer how to purchase an item, whether it is with a phone call, a completed online form, or a few clicks of the mouse. Build in a sense of urgency by telling the customer that if they purchase right now, they will receive a free gift or a discount. Make it clear and easy by saying, “Click here to receive your 10 percent discount.” If you prefer that your customers call you, make certain the phone number is prominently displayed on every page.
Written to Maximize Results
Creating language for a website means climbing into the head of a hypothetical visitor and trying to decide what words and phrases that visitor might use. SEO designers and copywriters use certain wording and insert phrases into web pages with searching and usability in mind. Page titles and navigation play just as important a role as body copy.
Unscrupulous SEO firms will repeat a keyword or phrase dozens of times on a page to secure a high ranking. The high ranking may be achieved, but the user who clicks on that page may end up bewildered and irritated. This “black hat” approach can actually hinder user experience. An example of this kind of repetition ad nauseam might be: “If you are looking for the best deal in tennis shoes, we have all the brands of tennis shoes available at steep discounts. Our selection of tennis shoes surpasses any other store’s selection of tennis shoes and our tennis shoes come in all styles of tennis shoes. We have women’s tennis shoes, men’s tennis shoes, children’s tennis shoes...” and so on.
Some unethical SEO practitioners try to get around the obvious use of keyword stuffing by setting the color of the text the same as the background color, so that the words are there, but you cannot see them. Only the search engine spider can see these words. Not only is this against search engine guidelines, but it can interfere with layout and design, hindering usability.
Excellent Layout and Design
In good web design, the layout is visually attractive and image clutter is avoided. Pages download quickly, graphics and text do not clash, and every graphic has a descriptive “alt tag.” The alt tag, which is text associated with an image, appears when the user moves his mouse pointer over a graphic.
The alt tag will not say “picture.gif” but instead something descriptive, such as “Corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina.” The alt tag is helpful when users surf with graphics turned off and view pages in text-only mode, or for blind users with audio-based browsers. The tag should describe the image, not contain dozens of stuffed keywords put there solely for search engine indexing. A graphic with its “alt tag” stuffed with keywords only confuses users, yet this is a common tactic of unethical SEO.
Google has banned unethical SEO companies along with their clients for intentionally deceptive practices. Improperly optimized websites can cause far more problems than a site that is not optimized at all. Google, MSN, and Yahoo will de-index those websites caught using shady SEO tactics, costing the banned businesses lost sales and a damaged reputation.
By creating thousands of web pages, each one optimized for certain keywords, the black hat SEO techniques go after a shotgun type of volume. Users who click on these pages, known as “doorway” pages, are usually redirected to another page that may have nothing to do with the real object of their search. This frustrates people and may gain your business far more enemies than friends.
Similarly, “cloaking” shows the search engines one keyword-heavy page and users another, more visually presentable page. A cloaking program compares the IP address of the requestor to a database of known spider IP addresses, and if they match, the program delivers the spider a page written solely to obtain high ranking from the search engines. But the increased thousands of visitors this brings to your website will not give you a strong sales conversion ratio if your actual web page does not correlate with what visitors were searching for in the first place.
Some Ways That SEO Can Improve Sales
The most effective SEO will drive traffic to your website that translates into actual sales. In one case study, an SEO overhaul on a particular website resulted in a drastic cut in the amount of traffic, but a steadily climbing sales conversion rate. This website was attracting researchers rather than customers, until the SEO team revamped the keywords and added a call to action and a shopping cart function.
Ensure Links to Your Site
Properly done SEO ensures that the right websites link to your site. Inbound links are sites that link to your site, and outbound links are those sites to which you link. Search engines assign value to the number and popularity of links on your site. Irrelevant or deceptive linking does not lead visitors to useful content but tries to make a web page look more popular than it really is. A given web page’s links must fit into the site context. In other words, the technique of stuffing your pages with links to your friends’ businesses, when they run ice cream shops or restaurants, and your website sells tires, would be considered deceptive and unethical. Beyond that, it will also cost you customer loyalty and goodwill, because it irks everyone.
Consider Paid Listings
Paid advertising on the SERP through Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing can produce substantial revenues, although studies show that users tend to prefer unpaid or “organic” listings. Still, paid listings generate revenue for search engines, and this is a good thing. As effective as they are, the search engines cannot include all the pages of a given website, and to guarantee placement of a crucial web page, a company can pay for a listing and send targeted visitors directly to what they are offering. With Google AdWords cost-per-click pricing, you only pay when people click on your ad.
Avoid Search Engine Unfriendly Technology
Flash-only websites and sites built with frames are not conducive to indexing by search engines. Neither are splash pages. Strive for a multimedia look and feel with a highly interactive site and the majority of text in HTML format instead. For a website’s core navigation, avoid JavaScript Jump menus or Flash menus, which the search engine spiders index with difficulty. Every page in your website can potentially gain top ranking with the proper use of keywords and a text-based navigation menu.
Gain Prominence through RSS
Gain search engine prominence through RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which is like the "Oprah" of the internet. RSS feeds are picked up by consumers and journalists alike. When you set up a blog, for instance, make certain you have an RSS feed available, because blogs and websites with an RSS feed are considered “syndicated.” Some blogging software generates RSS feeds automatically.
Do Not Neglect Traditional Marketing
Finally, make certain that your company’s Yellow Pages ad, as well as printed brochures, mention your website URL and important email addresses alongside phone numbers in the contact information. Add your website URL to your employees’ business cards, their e-mail signatures, and other traditional promotional material. Online marketing is jazzy, but it is still only one tool in your marketing toolbox. Traditional initiatives ranging from branding to lead generation will help you differentiate your company from the competition and market your products and services, regardless of your SERP ranking on the internet.
About the Author
Diane Kuehn is President and CEO of VisionPoint Marketing, an interactive marketing solutions firm for mid-size organizations that provides strategy, design and development services, execution, and measurement of integrated online marketing programs. For more information on VisionPoint Marketing, please visit www.visionpointmarketing.com or call (919) 848-2018.
