Entries Tagged 'keywords' ↓

Congratulations, you’ve taken the bull by the horns, spent a shed load of cash on search engine optimisation, you’re website is finally in the top 10 for your chosen keywords so you’ve made it, right?

Wong.

Yes, you’re ranking well but there’s something missing…you’ve got no traffic.

Is that possible? Can you have a top ranking website that doesn’t get traffic?

The simple answer is yes and it’s probably caused by one of these three reasons:

1. You’re Not Really Ranking
2. Your Keywords Don’t Deliver
3. Your Results Don’t Get Clicked

Confused?

This post on seomoz.org explains all. Entitled I’m ranking, so where’s my traffic it explains why, despite your bank balance’s best efforts, you’re not getting traffic to your website.

It could be anything from distortion from Google’s personalised search results, badly chosen keywords or the fact that you’re not attracting those all important clicks when you do appear in the search results.

If you’re website isn’t performing as you think it should, it’s well worth taking a few minutes out of your day to read this article – it could help turn your under-performing website around.

As an internet marketer you’ve probably heard people talking about traffic and conversion rates.

So what’s your conversion like?

Do you know?

Do you even care?

Well, if you want your online marketing to be effective you need to know and care what it is. But before you charge headlong into panic because your conversion isn’t as good as your neighbour’s, you need to consider what your conversion goal is.

Your conversion goal may well be different to your neighbour’s so don’t get hung up on who’s got the biggest just yet.  First you have to work out what yours is. It could be:

• Newsletter sign-ups
• Order form completions
• Brochure downloads
• Signing up for a free trial
• Payments

Once you know what it is you’re measuring you can start to quantify the effectiveness of your website through Google Analytics.

But before you can achieve conversion you must have traffic. The information you obtain about your website through analytics will show you the number of visitors your website is receiving every day, week or month (that’s your traffic), how long they remain on your site, which keywords bring in the most traffic, which pages they visit etc.

You may think you’re doing brilliantly with your marketing because you are getting thousands of visitors to your website every month.

Great – but is that reflected in your sales or sign ups? If your traffic has suddenly jumped, has your turnover made the same leap? If not, something’s wrong because you’re not converting.

5 reasons why you’re not converting

1. Quantity not quality

You may be getting loads of visitors but if no one is buying something is seriously wrong. The first thing to check is your keywords.

Each page of your website should be targeting a different keyword. So if you are getting traffic but there are no conversions (and your bounce rate is very high), check your keywords as they may not be attracting the right readers.

2. Your promise isn’t delivering

Again this one goes back to your keywords.

In this instance you may be using a keyword that doesn’t actually reflect what’s on your webpage. Therefore visitors are arriving at your site expecting to see blue butterfly brooches but when they arrive all they find are blue brooches.

Therefore you have a mismatch between what you’re offering your visitors and the traffic your SEO efforts is targeting.

3. Now what?

One of the most common aspects of a web copy that is missed is the call to action.

If a visitor lands on your website, finds your content relevant and interesting you must make sure you tell them what to do next.

A well positioned, commanding call to action above the fold of your web page (so it’s in their eye line) will make sure your reader knows exactly what they must do next – whether it’s to buy, order, sign-up etc.

4. Boring…

If you’ve gone to the expense and trouble of developing a good SEO strategy you need a great website to wow your visitors when they find you.

If your web site is poorly structured with bad navigation, slow-loading pages and full of annoying pop-ups your visitors will flee.

This will reduce your conversion rates and boost your bounce rate – and that’s not good.

People want to see websites that are well designed, easy to navigate and a joy to use. These features will encourage them to stay and make them more likely to buy from you, sign-up to your newsletter or complete your survey.

5. What about you products?

Of course, your poor conversion rate may have nothing to do with the design of your website or the keywords you’re using. It could simply be because your products aren’t what your customers need.

You see web design and great copywriting will get you only so far – if you’ve poorly researched your market and are trying to sell something people don’t want, they won’t buy it. If you’ve checked everything else on this list and it all looks OK, maybe it’s time to consider whether your products and services satisfy the needs of your market.

As we’ve seen, your conversion rate (or lack of it) can be affected by a number of different factors. Your keywords, web copy, web design and products and services will all have their part to play. If you want targeted traffic and a great conversion rate they all have to be firing on all cylinders.

Search engine optimisation is vital for today’s online businesses.

If you want to be found you have to make your website as visible as possible and the only way to do that is through a strong SEO strategy.

More and more companies are realising that PPC is find for short a term push (if you have the budget for it) but unless you have seriously deep pockets, it’s not a long term solution.

A winning SEO strategy

If you want to be an SEO winner you’ll need the following:

• A well-researched list of keywords
• A well designed website structured inline with your identified keywords
• A professional SEO copywriter on board who really knows what they are doing
• An ongoing link building strategy

But whatever you do don’t try and go for fast results. SEO is a slow burning entity. You won’t get overnight results but if you work at it constantly you will be rewarded by lasting high rankings that will bring a continuous stream of targeted traffic to your website.

What to avoid in your SEO strategy

I came across a post on Seomoz the other day entitled “32 SEO Tactics to Avoid in 2011” which gives you a run down of ‘black hat’ techniques that should be avoided at all costs.

Have a read through and make sure you’re strategy is above board. Also take a look at some of the comments—it is a post that generated a lot of debate about SEO.

Sally Ormond, freelance copywriter, comments on Kieron Hughes’ post “Using YouTube as a keyword research tool for SEO” that appeared on SEOMOZ.org

When you think about keyword research, you probably instantly think about your products, services and geographical information.

The main tool you would probably name would be the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. After all, what better authority on keyword value than Google’s own tool, right?

Well there is also another possibility; one that actually gives you data from the search engine using public – so straight from the horse’s mouth.

I came across it in a post on SEOMOZ.org by Kieron Hughes – in his post he discusses the merits of using YouTube as a keyword research tool for SEO.

As Kieron states uploading videos to YouTube is simple, anyone with a computer and internet connection can do it. But it’s not the video itself that is valuable for research purposes; it’s the descriptive content that accompanies it that is a gold mine of information.

Taking the example of speech therapy, Kieron illustrates how a search on YouTube generated associated words such as:

•    Autism
•    Oral motor exercise
•    Chewy tube
•    Down syndrome
•    Oral motor therapy
•    Apraxia

That would not have been generated through Google’s tool. So if you are researching a subject area for a client in which you don’t have in depth knowledge, YouTube could prove a valuable tool in your keyword research armoury.

A gold mine of information

People from all walks of life, professionalisms and personal experiences use YouTube as a platform to share their knowledge and experiences. These are normally people who use the search engines daily and so are invaluable sources of information.

So by using YouTube as a resource you could change your initial site navigation from:

To something more representative of your industry with greater SEO potential:

So next time you are doing some keyword research – either for yourself or for a client – don’t overlook the potential of YouTube.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll know that Search Engine Optimisation is a frequent subject that is visited.

It is vital for all internet marketers to get their heads round the concept of SEO as it is probably the most effective long term solution to gaining great Google rankings. And yet, many businesses are still opting for PPC campaigns which are not ideal long term and simply generate traffic quickly (if done correctly).

So what happens when your budget runs dry and you have to back off the PPC for a while? You guessed it, no traffic.

Investing in SEO may not give instant results but, if done correctly, will over time provide great organic listings and a constant stream of traffic.

So what’s the first step?

Keyword Research

One of the most important aspects of any SEO strategy is identifying the keywords you want to target. If you are unfamiliar with this term, your keyword(s) are the words and phrases real people (i.e. your potential customers) would search for to find your business.

But you have to be careful not to be too general in your choice of words. For example, copywriter in Google UK returns in the region of 3,820,000 results and is therefore a very competitive term. But, by going for a more regional term, such as Suffolk Copywriter (which returns 50,700 results) there is less competition and consequently more chance of you hitting the front page.

Keyword Tools

There are a number of tools available out there, but the most popular is Google’s Adwords tool. But, to get the most out of it, you have to learn how to use it effectively. I recently came across  this post on dailybloggr.com – “Tips to Use Google’s Keyword Research Tool Effectively” which will help you understand how to find the optimum keywords for your industry to ensure you attract the right traffic to your website.

Why not pop over there now and take a look and take the first step on your SEO journey.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter