Last week, FEI marketing whiz Marka taught the tribe how to create content that will keep people reading and returning to FEI’s website. Now, Marka concludes her series of tips on the FACS formula for effective websites. Her last topic is how search-engine optimization (SEO) can help FEI get more business from its website. Remember, fire = print.
Zoot strolled into the conference room, his nose buried in his weekly appointment book. Oblivious to his surroundings, he walked into a pillar, one of seven added near the front of the room.
Zoot tumbled to the floor and his appointment book flew across the room. “What the Hades was that?”
“You just ruined my visual aid!” Marka exclaimed. “I spent a lot of time arranging those seven pillars.”
“Why seven pillars?” Zoot asked.
“Today we’re discussing search-engine optimization (SEO),” Marka explained. “SEO best practices can be broken down into just seven components, or...pillars.”
“Why should we care about optimizing our site for search engines?” asked Numo, who’d arrived early and was already seated.
“The answer is simple and obvious,” Marka replied. “Good SEO practices lead to more interested prospects finding our O-site. More qualified site visitors lead to more sales. Let’s begin with Pillar I.”
Pillar I: Create external links to your O-site.
“Search engine bots count how many times our O-site is linked to from other O-sites,” Marka explained. “All other things equal, an O-site with more external links pointing to it will rank higher in search engines than another with just a few inbound links.
“We can create external links to our O-site through…” [Marka moved to the whiteboard to conclude her thought in writing.]
- O-cial media posts,
- O-Tube videos, and
- Press releases distributed over an O-line wire service.
Marka scribbled more on the whiteboard.
Pillar II: Use search engine-friendly page titles.
“An O-page’s title can help—or harm—its search-engine ranking for relevant search terms,” she explained. “Effective titles will include specific, relevant keywords or phrases and be relatively short, yet descriptive. For instance, we should title our torches O-page ‘Efficient, Affordable, Long-lasting Torch Solutions’, not ‘FEI Product #4.’ This O-page will be more likely to show up in the results for users searching for any of those terms, which is what we want.”
“Last one for today,” Marka said, then began writing more on the whiteboard.
Pillar III: Increase O-site traffic.
“That one’s a bit of Catch-22,” Zoot said. “Heavily-trafficked O-sites perform better in search-engine rankings. Yet the whole point of SEO is to drive visitors to our O-site in the first place, right?”
“Very astute, Zoot,” Marka observed. “Fortunately, these days, virtually every tool in our marketing arsenal can be used to drive traffic to our O-site. Here’s a partial list:
- Low-cost Google Adwords campaign,
- O-line videos,
- Broadcast O-mail,
- O-cial media posts,
- Banner ads/other O-web advertising, and
- Print marketing campaigns with QR codes back to O-site landing page.
“Our O-site is still the first place people go to learn about our company, to discover our fire solutions, and to place an order,” Marka asserted. “That’s why a lot of our O-line marketing should be focused on driving traffic back there—whether it’s an O-Facebook post linking to an order page, or a broadcast O-mail driving traffic to a customized landing page promotion. Of course, all these activities help improve our site’s position in search engines, too.”
“Great presentation,” Zoot said. “But please, put those pillars on a shelf or something next time.”
FIRE! Point
Good search-engine optimization (SEO) practices lead to more interested prospects finding a company’s website. More qualified site visitors lead to more sales. SEO best practices can be broken down into just seven components, starting with acquiring inbound links, using page titles that are search-engine friendly and increasing website traffic.
FIRE! in Action: AlterCare Uses SEO Marketing to Increase Its Site’s Visibility
The medical rehabilitation provider enlisted an SEO marketing firm to optimize their site for search-engines, a process which included all of the tactics described above. The results? Despite competing in a crowded market, the company increased its unique visitors, search engine referrals, link popularity, pages indexed by Google...virtually every factor that determines SEO success!
Next week: Marka goes over the last four pillars of good SEO.
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- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
Very much alive and now officially an industry curmudgeon, strategic growth expert T. J. Tedesco can be reached at tj@tjtedesco.com or 301-404-2244.