An early morning conversation with one of our long term clients inspired this post. Rick Koke, President of Koke Inc., experienced the benefits of SEO for his manufacturing company, and had this to say: “You can love your product line all you want, but it’s what the customer needs that makes all the difference.” From discovery to analysis to market research and beyond, SEO is more than just “growing your rankings in the search engines.” Let’s take a closer look at three elements of an SEO campaign that can help grow your business.
Keyword Research
Researching the key phrases that bring potential customers to your website is a fundamental piece of any SEO campaign. Business increases when keyword research is done properly and thoroughly and it is acted upon!
A great example of this is our client, Ellms Family Farm. During the keyword research process, we found that people were looking for “Halloween pumpkin patches” as well as “corn cannons”- two attractions that weren’t yet available at the farm. After seeing interest for these attractions in the keyword research, Ellms Family Farms started offering Corn Cannons and a Halloween themed pumpkin patch. It wasn’t long before they saw the benefits of this decision, as new website traffic turned into new customers, and new customers turned into more revenue for the family business. When Ellms Farms catered to what the public was communicating through keyword research, they found their business growing as a result.
The Discovery Process
The exchange of information during a discovery meeting is where you need to pay close attention to what your client wants and needs. An example of this is our client, Gould + Partners. Over the last few months, he recognized a recurring theme in the needs of his clients. Paying attention to this, he opened an entirely new division to his company which would meet this need. By doing this, he gave way to a new string of keywords and traffic streams, bringing more prospective clients to his website and increasing exposure for his services.
Website Analysis
Given the wealth of information we find in the analysis process, it’s no wonder the process of looking at statistics is so important in guiding a SEO campaign. There are just too many to mention, but we can name a few important elements: Bounce Rate and Page Traffic: Bounce rate is an easy indicator of the accuracy of the page. Does it fulfill the expectations of the searcher, or are they clicking off the page? Clicking off can be an indication that the page needs improvement. Individual Page Traffic is a way to gauge popularity of the keywords you are targeting on individual pages. When we look at page traffic for individual pages, we can see if the efforts we have been putting into it have paid off, or if efforts are not producing results. Often, page traffic for certain pages will pleasantly surprise us and it is on those surprise pages that we might expand a page into an entire section or expand the product line or service. Koke Inc. took this into consideration when they recognized the popularity of their Safety Baskets page and added to the product line with a new Rescue Basket.
With the information you learn from analyzing your stats, you will fine tune your website to get the maximum amount of conversions.
Each of these elements should be a driving force for growing your business. You can trust the accuracy of statistics and shape your next moves according to what they reveal. Statistics don’t lie.
SEO is an ongoing process that can produce amazing results for businesses of any size and across a variety of industries. If you want to grow your business and need help getting found by new customers, contact Mannix Marketing today to see how we can help!