According to popular opinion, good SEO / SEM means a large number of page views. High traffic equals a significant amount of purchases. This asumption is pretty correct and highly logical. But to make our dreams come true, there are several aspects that we have to keep in mind. The rules that I will show you in this article will allow you to increase the conversion of your website. Even without technical knowledge about positioning.
Setting SEO business goals first
The first foundation is setting business goals. This is the place where we should start. Not only in terms of SEO but generally setting up a business and any marketing activity. Example: e-commerce should generate profits by selling products. One of the mistakes that website holders make is focusing on the views. We can achieve that by for example using trendy keywords. Reality verifies those views. Most of the users lead by some fancy click-baiting headline will not only not buy your product. They will not stay on your website for too long. Which is even worst for SEO. Technically speaking views do not equal conversion.
Way better approach is to look for and please potential customers. We should aim at people sincerely interested in our products. The ones that really need them and are willing to buy or at least find out about them.
The quality of the website itself
In terms of website design. First of all the same as with SEO, it needs to come in pair with our business goals. Nowadays companies have billions of different products and services. So marketing strategies can vary as hell. For example, when selling courses you may only need a landing page and it will be enough so long as the majority of your customers come from such channels as youtube or Instagram. In terms of the most complicated websites such as e-commerce. You need to focus on the purpose of the website first. For someone interested in buying a product, fancy 3d animations flying around the screen may not only be not attractive but simply make him wasting his time! The time btw is one of the most important factors that decide whether somebody will buy something from you online or not. The fewer clicks the better.
Obviously, you cannot neglect the visual part of the website as well. A good first impression should come in pair with handy well-designed functionality.
Favor content over SEO
All the indexing algorithms are designed to reflect human behaviors and needs. About which I’m writing more here /TODO LINK. Google’s goal is to present to users the most valuable websites first. So even if you don’t know too much about things like HTML tags, image optimization, information architecture you still can compete on the highest level.
Just by providing valuable content. The content that will encourage people to share it. So so long as you know some total basics of SEO like key-words and you give the user your best you don’t need to worry about your rank. Obviously, disturbances of google algorithms happen. We hear about how a new algorithm crashed somebody’s position. But IMO your goal is to reach the people who will consider you as worth their trust. People who will spend time on your website, buy something, be happy with that purchase or visit, and will come back. If it will be so, Google will appreciate your website as well. It is in their business too.
Summary
Most important in any marketing activity is always to know exactly what do we want to achieve. Then we focus on our customers. Their habits and needs. Basing on that research we think about successful campaigns whether it’s gonna be SEO or social media marketing. By providing great content you can compete in SEO rankings. Just don’t forget that your content should be served attractively. So long as people will be happy with whatever you provide robots will be happy as well.
Senior Software Engineer with over 7 years of experience and entrepreneurial background. Most often, apart from delivering good quality code on time, responsible for introducing good practices, teaching programmers and building team bonds andestablishing communication on the line of development-management. Privately Kākāpō and Wombat enthusiast, traveler and retired acrobat.