Here is your
NoSpin Debunker for June 8, 2004
Add Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Your
Sales Funnel
Read
this complete white paper online on the new NoSpin Marketing
website.
Do you have gaps in
your Sales Funnel: not enough prospects continually entering
your pipeline-and/or not enough profitable sales at the end?
Your SEO Funnel can be a big asset IF you get serious about
your website and your SEO marketing.
The main reason you
should decide to get into Search Engine Optimization (or SEO,
also called Search Engine Marketing or SEM) is to generate
more Sales (and/or reach other business objectives, e.g.
recruit more employees etc.). SEO is not magic or tricks---or
one single thing-that will necessarily turn your business
around, but rather is a group of sophisticated, coordinated,
ongoing, online marketing tactics. For many businesses SEO now
provides the best Return-On-Investment (ROI) that can be
realized from any single marketing initiative.
Visible Impressions, Quality
Click-Throughs, Probable Purchaser Contacts &
Sales
Our NoSpin Marketing
approach to SEO helps generate more initial "visible
impressions," convert more of those visible impressions into
click-throughs (people who actually click into to your site
via an Internet search), convert more click-throughs into
"probable purchaser contacts," and in the case of e-commerce
sites, convert more contacts into sales-directly, online.
NoSpin's is not a cookie-cutter SEO approach for every
business-as many so-called one-stop SEO solutions tout-and
then over-promise. Done the right way, SEO is not easy and
takes some investment and patience, but it also produces
results.
For those of you who
are selling services, in particular, that are not applicable
to e-commerce, we impact everything that brings quality leads
your own sales funnel. NoSpin Marketing
also assists in coordinating other marketing
initiatives-online and offline-but that is optional and
depends on your internal resources and expertise. But what we
do try to impress on every client is the importance of
measuring your SEO investment and results over the course of a
typical sales cycle. And-if you listen and act-you will start
depending on those new prospects that you never thought would
come to you online and increase your sales.
SEO takes know-how,
time, and investment-and is not a one-time thing that you put
into motion and then ignore. That's why more than 90% of
companies still don't do it or don't do it right. That's where
NoSpin Marketing
comes in. Most companies are too busy or do not want to learn
all they need to know to handle their ongoing SEO (or their
website content). Besides offering any level of website
development work, we'll set up everything initially to get you
started with your SEO and then do all of the ongoing
monitoring an adjusting-based on your own objectives. Or if
you really want to learn SEO yourself, we'll teach you how to
proceed. That's entirely up to you.
Where those 90%+ of
all companies-that also typically have bad, outdated
"brochure" sites--still do NOT get it (luckily for others who
do) and are completely missing the boat is that they say: 1)
We never get any (or few) leads via our site and/or 2) We
can't sell our stuff directly, online, anyway-and so our
website being a mediocre brochure is OK (that is, why would we
waste the time and money to make it any better?). Or they add,
"We don't (can't) do (much or any) business with strangers."
Get over it. Escalating billions of dollars of commerce are
happening between folks who have never met-or who first met
via the web. It took a few more years than many predicted, but
commerce via the web is happening--and is still in its
infancy. And you don't have to sell products or services
directly online to have a wildly successful website. But if
you have a site and don't get any results from it, the reason
that you don't get leads/sales is going to take work on both
your website and SEO. They are intertwined.
Is SEO Right for Your
Business?
Do the web and SEO
work great for every business? Not necessarily. There are no
guarantees-as there aren't for any aspect of business. None of
following are absolutely required (and there are many
exceptions to the list below), but if you do one or more of
the following, you need a really good search engine optimized
website unless you want to leave a lot of business on the
table for someone else:
- There are
relatively significant volumes of visitors that type various
keywords into search engines to look for your types of
products and services. Note that estimates of these volumes
are available if you know where to look e.g. on Overture, Wordtracker, and
elsewhere. You may be very surprised by the number of people
looking for what you sell.
You sell your products or
services globally, nationally, or at least in a reasonable
regional geography (and there are exceptions to this
geographic "rule").
- You sell high
dollar value products/services and/or you sell a wide array
of products and services.
- You sell "niche"
(vs. only generic) products or services that have relatively
large potential audiences.
- You offer products
and services that can be sold online via credit card on an
e-commerce site (this one is almost a no-brainer for
SEO).
- You are willing to
invest a reasonable amount of money in pay-per-click bidding
(which could be a few hundred dollars a month up to several
thousand dollars per month) and are willing to monitor the
ROI on that investment.
Continued...read the rest of this SEO white
paper online.
Tom Ranseen,
Principal
NoSpin Marketing
615.383.7157
