In some ways, search engine optimization is not very different from other aspects of life. What you put into it is what you get out. In the early days of SEO, this was less true, since the norm was a client handing off their campaign to an agency with little subsequent involvement. Nowadays, SEO is no longer a singular marketing methodology. Successful campaigns require collaboration between an agency and its clients on multiple fronts.
SEO – You Get Out What You Put In
Content
Successful SEO campaigns require collaboration between an agency and its clients on multiple fronts. Click To Tweet Yes, we’re aware that there are countless articles out there claiming “content is king,” but the fact remains that quality content is fundamental to a successful SEO campaign.Content published off-site generates solid backlinks, and content published on-site can be integrated into landing pages targeting specific keywords. Without feedback and input from the client, however, there is a risk of the content created by the SEO agency may not be as accurate or informative as it could be.
The more relevant and informative your content is, the higher it will be indexed in organic searches, and the more successful it will be at converting traffic into leads, into sales, and into revenue for your company.
Offers and Calls To Action
To confirm, the true goals of SEO are sales leads and revenue – not traffic volume, and definitely not rankings. SEO attracts traffic to your company’s website, after that, the website needs to convert that traffic into leads. In order to do that, it must have strong calls to action, and offers.
If you are observing increased traffic volumes, but not an increase in conversions, you might consider examining your calls to action and offers. CTA’s like: “Call for more information” or “Contact us now” are pretty feeble efforts, and aren’t strong enough to support a successful SEO strategy.
Website Functionality
Similar to offers and CTA’s, a company’s website needs to provide a spectacular user experience (UX) in order to convert traffic to leads. There are certain functionality components impacting user experience that are assessed by Google. Quick page load times are rewarded by google’s algorithms, making loading times a crucial element os website performance. Additionally, the following two website issues need to be addressed through collaboration with your SEO provider:
- Mobile optimization — Google rewards content that delivers a strong mobile experience. Mobile optimization may require a great deal of design work, but it can help you capture significant new chunks of qualified traffic.
- Navigation and page-by-page keyword focus — Some sites require a complete overhaul to make their content comprehensible to Google crawlers. Big job, big reward!
Many other on-site tasks, like fixing broken links, or reworking title tags can be handled fairly simply, but without effective collaboration all of the work in the world will be ineffective.
Budget
So far we have been discussing SEO components that only require a commitment of a client’s time. A financial commitment is also important, as attempting SEO on a microscopic budget is highly unlikely to be successful. If you do not have a sufficient budget, your SEO team will not be able to:
- Create high-quality content in sufficient volume
- Market the content effectively to off-site publishers
- Review and repair all on-site issues affecting SEO
- Create non-content backlinks in sufficient volume
- Do thorough and ongoing keyword analysis
- Conduct tests, evaluate data, and make strategic and tactical adjustments
If your SEO investment does not seem to be paying off the way you’d like it to, please contact us. We’d be happy to review your situation and share ideas for improvement.
