Are you leveraging your SEO efforts for all they are worth? If you are doing it yourself, probably not. SEO has become a true art and it is no longer for the amateur. Most small businesses are relying too heavily on paid search despite the fact that all current marketing research indicates that organic search is the way to go because consumers find organic search to be more trustworthy than paid.
Like all of your marketing and advertising, you want your SEO to be actionable. You want it to be as perfectly integrated as you can make it so that the potential customers are acting on it. If it is not driving traffic then it isn’t working for you despite what anyone may be telling you. The problems are in the translation between your company goals and your SEO goals.
If you have an internal SEO team that is too focused on keywords and rankings, then you will be falling far short on a consumer SERP. It must align with your business goals which is, basically, to make money.Your revenue goals and your SEO goals must be integrated for it all to be actionable. If you are ranking higher on SERP’s, you should, theoretically, be driving more traffic and making more conversions. However, sadly, this is seldom the case.
Keywords and phrases are not created equal and, because of this, many SEO campaigns get stalled or are not being used to the greatest effect. You may have your team, or outside firm, working strictly on keywords but that doesn’t always translate into traffic and conversions. Many small businesses are keying their SEO on what Google wants to see rather than on what your customers and potential customers are experiencing during a search.
Your SEO must align with consumer expectations. Too often a company’s website is not helpful with regard to search. For instance, all the current rage seems to be massive and clunky slideshows at the top of the home page. All of the “graphic artists”, who know absolutely nothing about SEO or sales and marketing, will rave at your “new awesome look”. However, the search engine bots and spiders are not going to plow through all of those slides and graphics in an effort to locate text. The slide show will just smash them in the face and they will withdraw and move on.
Also, you could have a great infographic or photo display(s) of your products or services that truly enhances your customer’s experience. But, again, the bots and the spiders are not going to translate all of that and you are losing out on possibly engaging more customers and extending your reach.
SEO is your translator. It is your interpreter so that your pages are actually speaking both search engine speak and customer speak. Integration and a smooth transition are the keys here. It isn’t easy but you need to do it or your future will be rather bleak. Just remember, though, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
