Add Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Your Sales Funnel

Transcription

1 Add Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Your Sales Funnel # Visible Impressions # Quality Click-Throughs # Probable Purchaser Contacts # Closed Sales 1

2 Filling Your Sales Funnel Via Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Do you have gaps in your Sales Funnel: not enough prospects continually entering your pipeline and/or not enough profitable sales at the end? Your SEO Funnel can be a big asset IF you get serious about your website and your SEO marketing. The main reason you should decide to get into Search Engine Optimization (or SEO, also called Search Engine Marketing or SEM) is to generate more Sales (and/or reach other business objectives, e.g. recruit more employees etc.). SEO is not magic or tricks---or one single thing that will necessarily turn your business around, but rather is a group of sophisticated, coordinated, ongoing, online marketing tactics. For many businesses SEO now provides the best Return-On-Investment (ROI) that can be realized from any single marketing initiative. Our NoSpin Marketing approach to SEO helps generate more initial visible impressions, convert more of those visible impressions into click-throughs (people who actually click into to your site via an Internet search), convert more click-throughs into probable purchaser contacts, and in the case of e-commerce sites, convert more contacts into sales directly, online. NoSpin s is not a cookiecutter SEO approach for every business as many so-called one-stop SEO solutions tout and then over-promise. Done the right way, SEO is not easy and takes some investment and patience, but it also produces results. For those of you who are selling services, in particular, that are not applicable to e-commerce, we impact everything that brings quality leads your own sales funnel. NoSpin Marketing also assists in coordinating other marketing initiatives online and offline but that is optional and depends on your internal resources and expertise. But what we do try to impress on every client is the importance of measuring your SEO investment and results over the course of a typical sales cycle. And if you listen and act you will start depending on those new prospects that you never thought would come to you online and increase your sales. SEO takes know-how, time, and investment and is not a one-time thing that you put into motion and then ignore. That s why more than 90% of companies still don t do it or don t do it right. That s where NoSpin Marketing comes in. Most companies are too busy or do not want to learn all they need to know to handle their ongoing SEO (or their website content). Besides offering any level of website development work, we ll set up everything initially to get you started with your SEO and then do all of the ongoing monitoring an adjusting based on your 2

3 own objectives. Or if you really want to learn SEO yourself, we ll teach you how to proceed. That s entirely up to you. Where those 90%+ of all companies that also typically have bad, outdated brochure sites--still do NOT get it (luckily for others who do) and are completely missing the boat is that they say: 1) We never get any (or few) leads via our site and/or 2) We can t sell our stuff directly, online, anyway and so our website being a mediocre brochure is OK (that is, why would we waste the time and money to make it any better?). Or they add, We don t (can t) do (much or any) business with strangers. Get over it. Escalating billions of dollars of commerce are happening between folks who have never met or who first met via the web. It took a few more years than many predicted, but commerce via the web is happening--and is still in its infancy. And you don t have to sell products or services directly online to have a wildly successful website. But if you have a site and don t get any results from it, the reason that you don t get leads/sales is going to take work on both your website and SEO. They are intertwined. Does the web and SEO work great for every business? Not necessarily. There are no guarantees as there aren t for any aspect of business. None of following are absolutely required (and there are many exceptions to the list below), but if you do one or more of the following, you need a really good search engine optimized website unless you want to leave a lot of business on the table for someone else: There are relatively significant volumes of visitors that type various keywords into search engines to look for your types of products and services. Note that estimates of these volumes are available if you know where to look e.g. on Overture, Wordtracker, and elsewhere. You may be very surprised by the number of people looking for what you sell. You sell your products or services globally, nationally, or at least in a reasonable regional geography (and there are exceptions to this geographic rule ). You sell high dollar value products/services and/or you sell a wide array of products and services. You sell niche (vs. only generic) products or services that have relatively large potential audiences. You offer products and services that can be sold online via credit card on an e-commerce site (this one is almost a no-brainer for SEO). You are willing to invest a reasonable amount of money in pay-per-click bidding (which could be a few hundred dollars a month up to several thousand dollars per month) and are willing to monitor the ROI on that investment. 3

4 The Search Engine Optimization Numbers Game Your SEO Funnel is really an adjunct to your current sales funnel. We focus on helping you fill up your funnel so that you can move more prospects down the funnel and as a result, close more deals. Of course (unless you rely strictly on an e-commerce site for your sales) you re going to have to work the probable purchaser contacts yourself. SEO takes an investment typically in your website, pay-per-click, SEO submissions, and SEO expertise to get positive results for your business. In the SEO Funnel diagram, the conversion rate from each major step to the next is typically less than 5% (and there are always exceptions). You know what your current sales conversion rate is e.g. for someone who shows initial interest (but is essentially entering the top of your Sales Funnel). Maybe that s more than 5% or closer to 1%-2%. We can work backwards or forwards (up or down the SEO Funnel) and run some numbers to check out a reasonable level of investment over e.g. 12 months (but minimally over a sales cycle timeframe) and ROI that would be acceptable for your business. For example, if you were to invest an additional $25K in your (SEO) marketing over 12 months, would you be happy with $50K in new revenue? $100K? More? Less? NoSpin Marketing will help you do some of the initial math to check out feasibility and then it depends on performance by NoSpin Marketing to help fill your funnel and your Sales staff to help to close deals. Our SEO approach helps you all the down the funnel (and into your own Sales process). We work to keep increasing the initial impressions and the conversion rates to generate more probable purchasers for your Sales Funnel. We recommend website changes needed and make sure your SEO and site are well coordinated with the rest of your Marketing and Sales. And we make sure that you monitor your results at each step and at the end. Yes, SEO is a numbers game that starts with impressions, but we make it a smart numbers game that will pay off with more closed sales at the end of your Sales funnel. 4

5 # of Visible Impressions (or searches per keyword) Start with a BIG number SEO all starts with the # of visible impressions. Internet search engine traffic continues to grow, hence increasing the potential number of impressions for almost all any keyword (that is a search term which is more typically 2-4 words) typed into any search engine. That s the good news. The even better news is that virtually every business has a whole bunch of keywords that people already use a lot more frequently than might be guessed to find their types of products and services online. Sometimes a few dozen keywords and sometimes a few hundred or more. But that fact is moot if visitors have little chance of seeing your site on the Internet when they type in any relevant keyword(s). Visibility is even more critical than the number of searches done (for a keyword). A very low percentage of web surfers ever try searching past the first search page or even past the top few listings--whether they are using Google, Yahoo, MSN; AOL, AskJeeves, AltaVista, Earthlink, InfoSeek, CNN or other top engines. Past the first page on any top engine, you are essentially invisible on the web. Web surfers may look for your company by name, but more often than not, they are looking for a type of product and/or service that your company may happen to sell. Like you (when you, personally, search for products and services online), your potential buyers type various keyword combinations into their favorite search engines(s) to explore and find what they want on the web. Impressions are essentially the number of times someone types any keyword(s) into any search engine. You don t want impressions for the sake of just getting more traffic (to your site) but rather impressions by people that really want to click into your site to find out about your company, products and services. And remember, unlike the overly hyped attempts of many other (much more expensive) media and marketing initiatives to throw stuff in front of you willy-nilly, visible impressions are born out of real, proactive attempts of people to look specifically for something they want to know about and or possibly purchase. Something that your company may offer. NoSpin Marketing Will Increase Your # of Visible Impressions NoSpin Marketing helps you raise rankings of both sponsored (pay-per-click) and non-sponsored (free) keywords relevant to your business by focusing primarily on the right keywords and the top engines that account for over 95%+ of all searches: We will: 5

6 Assess and understand your business via a comprehensive but quick Marketing SWOT Analysis. Analyze keywords that your audiences type into search engines using your web stats, your input, and specialized keyword tools (that actually count or estimate keyword volume) and then choose the right keywords. Recommend placement of keywords in the right places on your site, in particular your html content and title tags, the two most important venues for your keywords. Recommend/submit your site urls to key engines and directories. Suggest link possibilities on other sites critical to non-sponsored Google rankings, in particular. Develop pay-per-click ads/descriptions for appropriate keywords and bids to place your site in the Top 3 of Google Adwords (which also ranks you on AOL, AskJeeves, Earthlink, etc), Overture (which also ranks you on Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, InfoSeek, CNN, etc), and optionally secondary SEO services. Implement other SEO tactics that may be appropriate for your business. First page rankings on major (and minor) search engines are good, but the real objective is to be in the Top 3 on the first page sponsored and/or nonsponsored rankings. That can get very competitive depending on your business space. It is becoming more and more difficult (or at least not without a lot of know-how, luck, and/or willingness to use unethical tricks which I do not advocate) to get into the Top 3 of non-sponsored rankings and certainly within in any predictable timeframe. Even if you rely on one of the new SEO services that promises first page Google rankings (usually over-hyped), it can take a lot of time, and you usually don t get Top 3 rankings anyway for your best keywords. Bidding for your own keywords for pay-per-click sponsored rankings, on the other hand, gets you there in a hurry and generates more impressions, faster. Note that there are more and more web surfers who used to ignore or abhor sponsored (AKA paid ) listings but now favor them because many believe they tend to provide quicker and better access to what they want to search for. Or at least they now use both sponsored and non-sponsored rankings. To ignore sponsored rankings anymore as part of your online marketing is a BIG opportunity missed. 6

7 # of Quality Click-Throughs (or clicks) to your site Shoot Not Just for Clicks but for Quality Clicks Will all--or even most--of those people who use keywords (search terms) that might be great for your business click into your particular site? No way. Only a fraction will click into a page on your site--even if you are ranked #1 on the first page for every keyword search relevant to your business. It s a numbers game, but a numbers game you can impact and need to continually impact if you want to succeed and realize an excellent ROI from your SEO investment. First, as mentioned, someone has to see your site (link to one of your web pages) to get people to click into website. But typically only a small percentage of impressions will actually convert into click-throughs to a page on your site (that is, the percentage of searches wherein the web surfer decides to click into one of your urls). In most cases, a 2-3% average click-through rate on Google is very good even if your link is in the Top 3 on Page #1. Sometimes you can do much better even on Google or other top engines or not even reach 2%-3%--and still be wildly successful in generating click-throughs. It s a numbers game all the way down your SEO and sales funnel, and the objective is to increase those percentages at each key step along the way. There are no hard and fast rules in this numbers game, but even if conversion % s are less than 5% at each stop moving down the SEO funnel, that can still mean a lot of profit and excellent ROI--at the bottom. Your click-through rate will vary a lot per keyword(s) and will ultimately determine the actual number of visitors you get (to one of your pages). That overall rate, in turn, depends primarily on 1) how high you are ranked (per keyword) on the first search page and 2) how good your ad or description is (per keyword). NoSpin Marketing Will Increase Your Conversion Rate of Impressions to Quality Clicks-Throughs You need to bid into the sponsored Top 3 slots for at least some of your keywords on Google and/or Overture and I advocate both. Then you ve definitely got visibility and a shot at getting a decent percentage of folks to click on your brief ad or description (and you only pay if someone actually clicks into your site). The kicker is that you get only a very few words to differentiate your business, products or services and these ads/descriptions have to be precisely written (e.g. you can t use hype because your ads will be rejected) and be written for specific keywords. Some types of ads/descriptions tend to work much better than others and for very good reasons that SEO professionals know. 7

8 NoSpin Marketing will write your initial search engine ads /descriptions (tailored per keyword), monitor results, make adjustments (that will be necessary), and provide you regular reporting and then continue to handle your SEO as your competitors, your products and your services change--and as the SEO world keeps evolving as well. Note that in some cases, lower click through rates are actually better than higher ones (for specific keywords) because you may want your short ad/description to essentially eliminate some of the riff raff and pre-qualify buyers (e.g. by providing a specific price for your product/service, price range, or other concrete information that eliminates some of the tire kickers BEFORE THEY CLICK. But on the flip side, Google Adwords, still the behemoth in the SEO world, makes it even tougher to administer your own SEO by actually factoring your clickthrough rate into their unusual pay-per-click ranking system. In other words, if you bid high but get a lousy click-through rate on your ad, your ranking will in turn drop relative to others (regardless of bidding higher). Overture and others do not work the same way if you bid for a position, you get it until someone outbids you. # of Probable Purchaser Contacts for Your Sales funnel Collect Information from More Contacts Who Might Actually Buy Unquestionably, if you want to aggressively bid for top keywords (and implement other SEO tactics) and are willing to pay for those bids and initiatives, NoSpin Marketing guarantees a significant increase in clicks into your site. Terrific, but that s a complete waste of your time and money unless you are able to voluntarily capture at least basic contact information about your visitors and then, in turn, are willing to act upon that information. Before they get serious about SEO, 90%+ of companies with mediocre or lousy brochures online need: A generally better, easier to use and easier to navigate, meaty site that is updated regularly and is crystal clear in what it offers the visitor. Easy-to-use contact forms that are not too intrusive (don t ask for too much). Compelling content that promises enough information (usually free) value, so that it s a no-brainer for the visitor to trade his or her contact information for what you re offering. 8

9 NoSpin Marketing Will Increase Your Conversion Rate of Quality Clicks to Probable Purchaser Contacts Compelling content is the common theme of what most lousy brochure sites lack: content of enough interest or value that a person (YOUR audience) will be willing to trade some of their contact information to get something they want from you. Compelling content can be lots of different things depending on your particular business, and preferably you need more than one-- A software demo (if you sell software) A free sample audio/video piece or other free sample(s) A free newsletter subscription (and access to the newsletter archive) Access to a library of free, valuable, proprietary information A free Q &A service for visitors to ask you questions of your experts A free checklist or guideline that shows part of your business approach and expertise (without giving away trade secrets) A free analysis or assessment of a piece of your visitor s business Or many other types of compelling information that must be current, in demand (to your specific audience), and relevant to your business. NoSpin Marketing will help you identify (and develop, as necessary) compelling content that makes sense for your business and that initiates a relationship with you and your visitor AND makes it compelling for them to return again...and again. And although it may seem obvious NoSpin Marketing will make sure that surfers arrive first at the page that interests them most (which is not necessarily your homepage). Note that a web-generated contact can come via your online contact form(s), other addresses on your site or phone #(s) published on your site. It doesn t really matter how the contact comes in rather that they come in--and that you monitor and record all of those contacts. Also note that a contact can be an e-commerce sale wherein you are making a sale online and collecting visitor information so as to make that next sale. Probable purchaser contacts are a subset of total contacts that reach you via your site contact form, address or phone call. Despite your best SEO efforts, you will get some riff raff that are obviously not likely purchasers (or even influencers of likely purchasers): people that provide some bogus contact information (unless your form helps precludes it), competitors, researchers, students (who indeed may one day become purchasers or employees one day), etc. It s your decision on how to respond (or not) to this group, but they are NOT buying today or in 6 months. Probable purchaser web contacts have some potential of reaching the top of your sales funnel and require further qualification and sales work (see below). 9

10 NoSpin Marketing will help you monitor your website contacts, but you have to take it from there and respond ASAP (ideally the same day if not real-time) to these visitors. Most web visitors who want something do not like to wait. And you have to stay in touch by , phone, etc. because some of these folks may not be ready to purchase quite now but will be ready at a point IF you are top-ofmind. NoSpin Marketing will also assist in helping you coordinate your marketing and other offline marketing with your website and SEO initiatives. # of Closed Sales Use Your Website and SEO Marketing to Fill Your Funnel, Increase Sales & Improve Your Marketing ROI In the end it s all about closing sales and adding profits for your business. Effective SEO helps fill up your funnel, continually, with more probable purchasers. But again, only a fraction will actually buy. You probably know what your current conversion rate is from an initially qualified candidate at the top of your sales funnel to an actual closed sale. You want to shoot for at least the same conversion rate (of your SEO probable prospect contacts ) or better. If you have a good Information Commerce (I-Commerce) site with compelling content, it s going to be up to your sales people to put those probable purchaser contacts into their sales funnels and work them diligently and follow-up as they would do with any other leads. SEO does not take the place of other key prospects generators like cold calling, trade shows, marketing, media advertising, etc., but rather it complements all of them and vice versa. And most of my clients who get serious about SEO--have been pleasantly surprised by the positive results. They come to depend on SEO as part of their ongoing business. But more and more businesses are starting to get it on the web, and there is no time like the present to make your move. NoSpin Marketing Will Encourage You to Better Measure Your SEO (and other Marketing) ROI A lot of folks get overly tied up in their underwear obsessing about the precise origination of every contact and calculating ROI to the penny. While we are big advocates of tracking contacts from initial source to closed sale, sometimes it s hard to tell whether that person first found you via a web search or rather another marketing initiative. One thing that a lot of people never do is ask the question of the prospect: How did you first hear about us? (We advise doing that by phone or in person vs. by online form). What we ve found is that is you have a good website and are actively marketing using SEO, your site will become both an important primary and secondary 10

11 part of the marketing equation. Note both primary and secondary contacts sources in your prospect database. At the end of the day what is important is that you are getting overall positive ROI on all of your marketing efforts (and not just your SEO). For more information about NoSpin Marketing Services please see: Website Marketing Website Content Development Search Engine Optimization Website Evaluations & Plans Website Project Management Marketing Outsourcing Or Tom Ranseen, Principal, or call him at