You may think that gaining your page one listing, position one to five is the most important aspect of your SEO campaign. If you do, think again. My college Charlie calls it the “horse conversion rate” stemming from the old saying that “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

Your landing page (the page that people will click through to from your organic or paid listing) is the all important first impression of your company. This page needs to show users your company is what they are looking for, install trust and finally make them decide to go with your services over the other 10 companies on page one.

As ever with SEO you need to get this right from two perspectives, firstly you need to satisfy the search engines in order to earn your listing, secondly you need to prove yourself to your potential clients in order to “make a sale” (in what ever form that may be).

Here is a quick review you can work through to see if your landing page is up to scratch:

Search engines:

1.Search engines like clear information, aim to optimise one product per page.

2.Own your website. Contact details, name, company address, telephone and registered company number will all work in your favour.

3.If you run an on-line shop (e-commerce store) ensure you include a privacy policy if you require personal information.

4.Don’t hide behind your on-line shop, have easily accessible contact details, returns policy that is easily understood and details of how and where to return products to.

5.Can you improve you page loading time? Search engines don’t like being left out in the cold any more than your clients.

Clients:

1.Is it obvious what you offer? A keyword rich heading will clarify what your page is about.

2.Does your site look and feel professional? Use high quality photos and graphics, always use a professional designer over an amateur, who should take into account how design affects purchasing patterns and behaviour.

3. Reassure and and be up front with prices. What are you going to offer them that no-one else is? What are the advantages for buying your product for X amount over a similar product that is Y amount cheaper? Consider free postage, discounts, money back guarantee, warranty…

4.Make you check out as simple as possible, however much I prefer on-line shopping to battling with the masses and queuing to pay at packed tills, I hate long complicated contact forms equally as much, especially required fields that are not obvious.

5.Remove any links that could carry people away from completing that form.

6.A lot of people still don’t like giving their details on-line, it is your job to nurture these fears and make sure they feel safe in parting with their hard eared cash. Testimonials, reviews, credit card and security logo’s are a must.

It is important to think about the user experience. When looking at a website the eye is naturally drawn from left to right. It is important to account for this in your design, the first impression needs to portray trust, informative body text, leading to the right hand side where you will have your “call to action” If you are just starting out you are lucky and you can implement this into your design, if you are an established company I would advise taking a close look at how you could improve your design.

How can you make the most of your SEO campaign?

When it comes down to it, SEO is all about a return on investment. Being on a budget as most companies are, you need to put you money where it matters. While a good SEO campaign will drive the traffic you want to your site. If your website design is out dated SEO will only ever be a band aid solution.

Trust in your site:

A recent report from the BBC highlighted that 1 in 5 are worried about purchasing online due to fear of personal security. This is a serious point, but what can you do to reassure the buyer that you are worthy of their business. A well maintained website that is constantly updated, adding client testimonials and security buttons, such as paypal, mastercard secure code and verified by visa, will give buyers the sence of protection they need in order to hand over their bank details and make a purchase.

Site Usability:

I recently came across a fantasitc site, really loved the products and decided to make a purchase. However after clicking add to basket nothing happened, so I added it again, still nothing happened, a couple more tries and then I gave up, they lost a sale. All for the lack of some indication that it had been added to my basket. My point here is get a few friends or family over and ask them to test your site, watch them first and then ask for feed back. You will be suprised at what little changes will make a big difference to your conversion rates.

Call to action:

This one is easy, load up your home page is it instantly obvious how to make an enquiry, phone numbers and a quick contact form are key.

Go long:

There is no denying that ranking on page one for a competative keyword is going to bring you traffic. It wont nessicarily bring conversions. It will also take up alot of your time and resources. A clever way to go about finding where your conversions are coming from is via Google analytics. Have a look at the traffic sources safe in the knowledge that these have already brought you conversions. Long tail keyphrases wont have a high search volume but the user is more likely to know what they want, and are more likely to make a purchase. When looking to buy people will decide what they want, research products that could suit their needs, and at this point are most likely to make a purchase. This is where your blog will come in handy, use it to support your longtail keyphrases, these can be anything from your best selling products to a certain brand.

To sum up, put your money where it counts. Keep your website up to date, a tired dated website will not install trust in buyers, a good SEO campaign will get your visitors to the door, but its unlikely they are going to come in for a cup of tea. Don’t loose sleep over the fact you are not page 1 number 1 for your most competitive keyphrase, catching the people at the bottom of the net with more specific longtail keyphrases will often give you a higher conversion rate.

When you are approached by an SEO company they will ask you what phrases you would like to appear for, then guarranty that this can be done, but what if the phrases are not right?

At Creare we ensure that the keyphrases suit your business needs, Our consultants ensure that the we discuss and understand the areas of your business. This then enables us to use our expertise to advise you on keyphrases that will not only generate you traffic, but also conversions.

By conversions i mean the amount of people that visit your site and actually make an enquiry or buy something.  It can sometimes be the less competitive phrases that are more specific which will make you money, rather than the general ones and of course internet marketing is all about making your business money.

This takes an understanding of SEO and experience in optimising for various industries. We have clients with products that range from Oakley Sunglasses to Disabled Showers all of which have given us an understanding of what converts and what makes money.