Some very talented internet marketers still think that “Search Engine Optimization” — known in the business simply as SEO — is the ultimate way to optimize their websites to reach the broadest audience. They have certainly been deluged with advice about how to index pages and about the importance of using just the right industry specific key words to achieve high ranks on search engines — and that has been the primary goal of internet savvy marketers. But at some point, there comes the realization that there must be a more you can do to reach an audience on the Internet. Is SEO placeent really the beginning and end of internet marketing?
Don’t get me wrong. I agree with all the advice about how to make your site appeal to search engines–I have written about it for years in blogs, books and magazine articles — and there is plenty of material I have posted to encourage these techniques. So, I’m not telling you to forget all that advice. I’m telling you that there is more that you need to do than just concentrate on SEO strategies and key word placement.
Expanding SEO Marketing
The unfortunate side effect of the SEO Marketing mentality is that it causes developers too often to treat their web sites as though they exist as an end unto themselves. The pages are supposed to do all the work, with their SEO “search-friendly” techniques and key words all in their proper place, and that should be the magic formula for becoming a dominate force on the internet.
But is that all you can do? To fully utilize SEO marketing, consider posting the kind content that your customers are looking before they search for you. Many potential customers are searching for information that may not be even be on your website — SEO optimized or not.
How do you reach customers who don’t know what you do or that they could benefit from your business? Consider how many potential customers ultimately need the kind of business you run, but since you haven’t reached them, they don’t even know they want what you have to offer. How do you get them to land on your website?
Let’s say you are a tax lawyer. Do you think that your customers know just when they need to contact a tax lawyer? It may seem that the only way to direct internet search engines to your site is to use theSEO strategies using key word phrases like “tax lawyer Los Angeles” or “tax attorney Los Angeles”–but what were they looking for before they actually type in those words? How many of your potential customers were searching for terms like “help on IRS forms” or “tax filing assistance?” Probably a lot of them, and you miss out on potential business to other tax attorneys whose key words to attract those SEO clients.
Of course, since your competitors are still using SEO terms like “tax attorney Los Angeles,” you should continue to use those terms. But if you branch out a bit, and try for new SEO terms like “Los Angeles tax advice” and post helpful information to help them understand why they need your services, you might capture a searcher before long before they ever search for “tax lawyer Los Angeles.”
There are very few businesses that cannot benefit from this kind of practical advice. Instead of being satisfied with using the same SEO tactics your competitors do, figure out ways to attract more attention to your site with well crafted copy, interesting information and links to resources that contain the kinds of SEO terms that could send potential clients to your site before any of your competitors. Besides, simply optimizing your site for the SEO friendly words that everyone else in your industry uses cannot logically achieve a high ranking for everyone. So to differentiate yourself from the pack, expand your thoughts on how to use your website to entice customers by including complementary information that opens the door to a new range of possibilities.
For ultimate visibility on the Internet, don’t stop at optimizing SEO content — start optimizing your content and crafting a message that considers the entire scope of what your potential customers really need. Move beyond your industry-specific SEO placement that can’t put you ahead of your competitors. Take that next step and create enticing content, and you can count on a big increase in what you are really looking to increase: your bottom line.