Conversion Marketing: Search Engine Optimisation First?

All of our clients have websites. Most of them do some kind of website marketing (search engine optimisation, pay per click, offline promotions etc). This is great. However, what our customers really want are conversions. What do I mean by this?

Conversion Optimisation

A conversion describes those times that you get website visitors to do what you want them to do. For different sites this can mean different things: generating a lead, making a sale, having someone download an e-book or getting the phone ringing. Conversion marketing (or conversion optimisation) refers to the vital practice of reviewing and evolving a website so that the number of conversions received per 100 visitors continues to increase.

You should enter the keywords for any product or service into Google and review the top paid (pay per click) and free (organic, but often influenced by search engine optimisation companies) search results. Those websites on the first couple of page have all done something right in Google's eyes to get top billing. However, you should visit their actual websites and judge how well constructed they are when it comes to 'converting' site visitors. Chances are many of them are going to be terrible. How effective is your site in making your visitors do what you want them to do? What sorts of steps can you take to increase your conversion rate?

Search Engine Optimisation First

Conversion optimisation is generally most helpful for websites that already receive a large amount of traffic. Keeping this in mind, it is important to ensure that your website receives traffic via online marketing such as search engine optimisation and via other advertising investments. Thus, while conversion optimisation is vital, it is not as valuable to sites that receive minimal traffic. Consider first deploying search engine optimisation as part of and overall online marketing strategy.

Content Added and Post Revised: 19/06/2012