The Bigger Picture from An SEO Company’s Perspective
As an SEO company, the core concept we want to share with you is that we ultimately want to manipulate or entice the visitor to change their behaviour to do what we want them to do, that is to fulfil the objective of the landing page or the overall objective of the website. There is no point in an SEO company bringing traffic to a website and not converting traffic into customers although sometimes, as with content marketing, this may be over some time. In this article, we will teach you to understand the bigger picture of SEO and conversion optimisation and how the website's "ecosystem" fits together to achieve its goals.
Conversion Optimisation:
Conversion Optimisation is the where science meets design with one objective: to convert the visitor into a sales lead or planned action. If you plan correctly as an SEO company you can ensure a higher probability of ROI (Return on Investment). You should test your landing pages regularly to tell if you are achieving this and more importantly if you can do it better. We use a method could A/B split testing where we isolate slight differences in landing pages and then test whether they contribute to higher success or failure in terms of conversion of visitors into clients.
How does conversion optimisation affect our strategies? BrandSeed uses 3 major digital marketing strategies, as an SEO company, to get the user to our website and to fulfil the website's primary objective:
SEO
SEO: BrandSeed uses search engine optimisation to get the user to our client's website. Search engine optimisation is creating content for a website that contains keywords relative to the searcher's original search query and thus Google displays it on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and the user will then click on the search result and be brought to our website.
SEM
Search marketing is also used by SEO companies in the form of AdWords or Pay-per-click advertisements. We spend money to bid on the queries or keywords that our target users use to find information to solve their needs. These are the ads you see at the top and bottom of the Google’s search results page or SERP.
Content Marketing
BrandSeed creates content that is relevant to our target audience and creates a connection through offering value in interacting with our website. We use text, video and images that are all aligned to the what the user will find valuable relative to solving their need for SEO and more importantly return on investment.
Now back to our overall objective of the website ...
The only way we can get the user to fulfil this objective is by changing the visitor's behaviour. BF Fogg is the head of Persuasion Technologies at Stanford in the US and he has developed a model to change people’s behaviour called the B=MAT model.
B=MAT
BF Fogg is a very smart man. He believes you may change a user’s behaviour by applying the model below. For it to succeed, Motivation, Ability and a Trigger must occur at the SAME time for a conversion or change in behaviour, in our case the user would click on “Apply Now! or fulfil the overall objective of the website.
The team at BrandSeed use neuromarketing to create or enhance landing pages and content that converts site visitors into customers.
B= Behavior
Is changed by:
M=Motivation
A= Ability
T= Trigger
Occurring simultaneously.
M=Motivation
Motivation is tied to what the target user or persona (imagined personality construct of the visitor) finds value in. An example in our case would be a relevant useful web page that helps them in their search for an SEO company that delivers results. Here again, content is king! We have videos and pictures on our web pages that motivate the user, as an example as the content is aligned with what they are interested in and already have motivation for in terms of what they searched for.
A= Ability
The great thing about SEM and SEO is that people wrote the search query themselves, so they are already in their buying cycle before they even get to our web page, thus they are already motivated to some extent. They typed in the words “SEO Company” as an example, therefore, they were already motivated to an extent to find an SEO company. We just need to increase this motivation with content that is aligned with what the persona or what the visitor sees as valuable, in our case a business looking to be found in order to create sales leads for their business.
We can only get a person to click on “Apply Now” if they are on the page. We create ability by using our Search Engine Optimisation to show us on the first page of Google thus allowing people to click on a link and be on our page in the first place. We also bring them to our page through paid search adverts. If they are not on our website, they do not have the ability to change their behaviour to what we intended it to be on the website. Therefore Ability refers to how easy it is and accessible it is to fulfil the website objective and that is why SEO and SEM are so fundamental to businesses today.
T= Trigger
A trigger is anything that convinces users to act. On a web page, the trigger is mainly the CTA or call-to-action. A call-to-action is a phrase that tells or encourages the user what to do, examples: “Buy Now” “More information” “Apply Now”
A convincing video could also act as a trigger, as another example, if it was compelling enough. Even perhaps an amazing photograph that stirs the emotions of the visitor.
All 3 of these variables must occur at the same time in order to change the behaviour of the online user. It is important to understand this relationship from the start. This is where how your website is designed in terms of conversion optimisation comes into play. Do they need to scroll to calls to action for example or is above the fold or first loading area?
Watch the video below and then let's apply this to a real world example. The narrator of the video talks about coming to a park because there are people who could physically play there. People can only play the game if they are present to play it, thus they only had the ability if they were in the park. We similarly bring people to our website, just like the park, and therefore they have the ability to do what we want them to. The way we format the structure of the web page and content also adds to the ability. If it is easier to read and well laid out then it is easier for them to have the ability to do what we want them to do.
The trigger in the YoutTube example is when the woman approaches them and invites them to play the game directly. For Digital Marketing, asking them directly to play would be the call-to-action or the “Apply Now” button. Emotionally stirring images and video will also play a large role. Any activity that evokes the site visitor to fulfil the websites’ objective.
Summary
SEO on its own will not increase sales leads and achieve ROI. You need to understand the bigger picture and allow all the finite elements need to be present at the same time on your website or landing page design. Content plays a huge role in motivation but so does social signals/trust signals such as reviews or if the number of Facebook followers that was displayed on your page (trust signals). The reason you hire an SEO company is it takes countless testing with slight variations in design and content to achieve conversions. At BrandSeed, the smaller details are our passion. We are always focused, however, on the bigger picture, our client's ROI, when we create free proposals for them