Search Engine Optimization

By: Cade Lee

All too often I hear feedback from website owners and business owners about getting the “wrong kind of lead” from their website. In otherwords, the visitors they are getting to the site are not their “ideal” prospect or customer. I would take this a step further and probably guess that their conversion rate is very low and that they are getting the “shoppers” that are browsing every site known to man for their particular search. While “shoppers” are important to every business it is definitely not the ideal customer any business longs for. So how do you bring the kind of visitors that you want?

Although things are changing in the search algorithms and the major search engines are providing more relevant results than ever before, there are still irrelevant results on the 1st page of search engine results for thousands of searches. This is not because Google, Bing or Yahoo do not have excellent algorithms or fantastic results for the searches being performed through their search engines. This is simply because they cannot read the thoughts or intentions of those inputting the keywords into their search engines. So, for that person who is looking for a local plumber in Denver, if they were to search for “plumber” odds are pretty good that the only relevant sites they will find will be in the pay per click or “sp

onsored links” section. They will not find too many “local” results in the search engine results or the organic listings. The searcher will find national companies or even a Wikipedia article, but they will not find a local company for their plumbing needs.

Google is already attempting to change this by providing results according to IP or the searchers location, but you can imagine what a chore it is to have to differentiate those search terms that would be more likely to engage with local business versus those that do not.

So in the meantime, what will you do with your internet marketing campaign? How can you attract those visitors that are looking for your services and products? The answer  is to go for more specific key word phrases in your search engine optimization campaign. So for example, let’s take a printing business in Denver. This printer is putting together an internet marketing campaign in Denver as this is their primary target audience for business. Since I am using a real life example, I can tell you that this specific company wanted to first go for the search term “printing”. Since they had a limited budget (like any other company) and finite resources, this term did not make too much sense. Granted,

Are you focusing on the right kind of traffic

if they could obtain organic results in a very short time frame (which would not be likely) they could compete with the likes of Vista Print and other major companies who are getting tons of business from their efforts I am sure. The thing is, they have a limited budget and time is of the essence. The local printing company in Denver would like to secure  more leads online, and most importantly get in front of prospects that are ready to buy now!

So with that being said, some of the more effective keywords for this Denver Internet Marketing campaign that they might approach would be “Rush Print Job Denver” or “Fast print turnaround denver”, maybe even “24 hour printing in Denver”. These are terms that potential customers might actually use and the good news is that they are not as competitive as many other search terms within that industry. Now, I am not saying that this customer did not benefit from showing up for other more generic terms like “Denver Printing Company” or “Brochure Printing Denver”. It is important to obtain some other local keywords as well; however the customers that were ready to order definitely used more specific keyword phrases than the average “shopping” prospect who was researching their choices online.

As you are wandering through your analytics, and researching your keywords, don’t forget to pay attention to those keyword phrases at the bottom of the list. Make certain to look for the keywords in your internet marketing campaign that have attracted visitors with a low bounce rate. Your chances of conversion are higher with those individuals. If we take a look at our Denver Printer example and their Denver Internet Marketing Campaign, we have well over 12 months of analytics to review. Within those results, in the keywords used to get on their site, if we review the less used search terms that have a low bounce rate and good “length of time” for their visit, we will wind up with some keywords that we may have not considered previously.

By all means, you want to focus on major search terms and long tail keywords, but while you are doing this in your campaign, you will come across “odd” terms used by some of your visitors. Make certain to leverage this information and get in front of those searchers that have already proven a low bounce rate. These visitors usually spend more time on your site and even better yet, they are more inclined to convert into business!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites