How Can SEO Improve Your Conversion Rates
If you want to improve conversion rates, you’ll need a laser-focused approach. After all, 80 percent of your traffic online will go to the top 10 percent of your landing pages. Without a strategy, you could spend your time creating a whole lot of collateral that simply doesn’t get results.
Think of all the time and money lost. All the accompanying frustration! In the online world, SEO can help overcome these challenges of inefficiency.
In the following article, we’ll discuss the different ways it does this. Let’s begin!
SEO Helps to Affordably Reach Engaged Buyers
One way to improve sales funnel conversion rates is through a search engine optimization strategy that targets long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords get Internet searchers more specific answers to their questions surrounding an individual topic.
High-competition keywords may cost several dollars per click. This makes it unfeasible for small companies to compete with larger ones. It’s a much more even playing field with long-tail keywords, though.
As an example, let’s consider the keyword “beer.” If you’re a brewery targeting that keyword only, you’re competing with Anheuser-Busch, magazines, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
It’s not specific enough, especially when your goal is to sell beer to a regional delivery footprint. This is where the long-tails come in handy.
Instead of going for the generic and facing all that competition, you can choose any of the following:
- [Your State] beer
- [Your City] beer
- [Your County] beer
- Regional breweries that sell to supermarkets
There are hundreds of other variations. You should spend a great deal of time on your marketing strategy compiling and researching the use of keywords like these.
The payoff to doing so is you’ll be more inclined to rank organically, thus increasing click through rates. In other words, one simple strategy will improve SEO and conversions!
It Facilitates Content Consumption
Bettering your SEO ranking also will make it easier for people to access and consume your content. Even for sites moving away from text-heavy elements and into more video and visual (think: infographics), it matters a lot.
When you work SEO strategy, you’re trying to make the site more attractive for search engines. But the ultimate user of a search engine has a human face. Think of the thoughts, questions, and concerns they have when searching a topic.
Focusing on the strategy keeps the core purpose of your website front-and-center. That’s to deliver value to the people seeking it.
SEO Contributes to Fostering Trust with Your Audience
A well-oiled strategy to boost SEO traffic gives your site a trust advantage over those who don’t invest in and refine their efforts. When you rank high in searches, an audience is susceptible to trusting what you have to say.
After all, Google or Yahoo or Bing “wouldn’t be showing me this if these people didn’t know what they’re talking about, right?” That’s not necessarily true. But if it isn’t, your site won’t be ranking high for very long.
SEO affords you the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise. It also indicates you stay on top of changes in the industry as search engines tend to favor recent content over old or outdated. All three of these factors create and strengthen the bond of trust.
It Can Give You a Currency Advantage
Taking the currency argument a little further, you can use SEO to enhance your dynamic content or site pages that are subject to frequent changes. Make a point of going through old content to update links, research, and keywords.
On-page optimization strategies piggyback off past traffic while telling the search engines said pages remain good sources of information. Why is that important?
Industries change. New discoveries are made. Heroes become villains, and villains become heroes.
A page that reflects the shifting nature of a given topic with reliable, current information will benefit every single time. Pages that don’t will be forgotten.
SEO Enhances Discoverability on Mobile
How people find you is important. While you may be happy they find you at all, there are certain methods you’ll want them to use more because they come with higher conversion rates.
Mobile searches now dominate the Internet landscape because our phones are always with us. It’s very easy to open a browser from anywhere and tap in an inquiry.
But this isn’t why you want people finding you on mobile. You want them finding you there because 50 percent will visit your store or office in one day. And around one in five will make a purchase!
These searches come from highly engaged individuals. SEO, particularly local SEO, can help you take advantage.
It Highlights Weaknesses in Your Website
SEO audits can highlight and improve a number of factors that may not seem related to SEO at all. Audits bring attention to items such as the following:
- Broken links
- Overlooked HTTP pages
- Navigation problems
- Website load times
- Mobile friendliness
- Content quality
A word to the wise about these, however. Some industries are quite complicated and require a more specific, less generalist touch.
That’s led to companies that spend all their time working with one specific set of clients. For example, Dominate Dental does SEO for dental websites.
They use chat features and tracking software formulated for dental inquiries, comments, and concerns. It provides a deeper dive than generalist SEO allows, and small businesses are starting to expect that sort of detail in their specific industries.
Improve Conversion Rates with an SEO Strategy
The best way to improve conversion rates is to go beyond throwing money at the problem. You want to take an active role. Learn how SEO works.
Create valuable content. Target keywords with significant search quantities but low competition. Focus on mobile, and if you’re a local business, local searches.
If you’re in a complex industry, consider contracting with companies that focus solely on what you do. They’ll have unique insights you’ll have a tough time getting from anywhere else.
Best of luck as you work to implement. And before you go, make sure you check out our top SEO strategies for 2018.
