Below we discuss the exact steps that you can take to develop a Website that will, not only rank well, but will compel your prospects to take action.
Step 1 – Keyword Research
The first step of a sound Website and SEO campaign is proper keyword research. Not only do you want to find keywords that are relevant to what you do, but you also want to ensure that the keywords that you are going after will drive adequate volume.
The end result of any SEO campaign is to drive sales. To increase sales, it starts with leads and sales presentations. Both of these numbers are driven by your number of Website visitors. So, ranking is only the beginning.
Traffic is the key driver of success and the primary metric to keep an eye on. And this is why keyword research is so important. You want to find keywords that will accumulatively drive enough traffic.
Step 2 – Key Messaging
Prospects make a purchase because two of their needs are satisfied. The first is that they desire what you have to sell. The second is that they believe that you are credible and, as a result, they trust you.
We often see sites that are so highly focused on SEO, that the actual content on the Website is not compelling.
If you think about the key drivers of success that we discussed earlier (leads and presentations), why would a prospect opt in as a lead if they did not believe what you were saying or were compelled by what you have to say? If your content is simply written for SEO, it does not drive the leading indicators of success – leads and presentations.
A key messaging document should be developed that outlines the emotional drivers of your audience, so when they read your content, they feel like you understand them. Without outlining their emotional drivers, Website content ends up being misguided and unemotional.
Step 3 – Offer Development
Once you have a strong understanding of your keywords and message, you are ready to start working on your Website’s content. But, before you move forward with your content development, you want to develop an offer for your Website to maximize lead volume. What is an offer? It’s something that is free that you can provide to a prospect that appeals to their number one desire or pain point. An example is an eBook.
Ideally, you want to think about developing an offer that provides immediate gratification. Why? Because immediate gratification is proven to increase the response rate. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that at times other offers can be more applicable, depending on your product.
Step 4 – Layout and Design
The layout of your Website is vital to the success of your Website. Typically, the top section of your Website should include a compelling headline and offer that appeals to your prospects number one desire with a strong, call to action.
The secondary section of your Website should explain what you can do for your prospects, as well as how you do it. This is all about building desire, as we discussed in the previous post. Then, you want to support your claims with social proof and your personal story about why you are in business. This is all about establishing credibility and a relationship with your audience.
The third and final section of your Website should restate your offer, so your prospect does not have to scroll up.
Step 5 – Content Development
Your overall content should start by communicating why what you have to offer is important to them. It is for this reason that we recommend using their top desire or pain point in your headline.
Then, your content should simply say how it works and what it will do for them, followed by social proof and your call to action.
We recommend having your content developed before even thinking about adding your keywords. Why? Because once the content is written, it’s relatively simple to add the keywords in after, while trying to minimize the negative impact it has on the readability of the copy itself.
Step 6 – Coding
In terms of coding, this is where a lot of the SEO magic happens. This is all about having a Website that uses the right URLs, title tags, Meta descriptions, code, etc., and a site map to show Google and other search engines that your site is easy to navigate and loads quickly.
You want to make it easy for the search engines to understand what each and every page on your Website is about. And don’t minimize the importance of page loading speed. Google is increasing the importance of page speed because they want to provide a good experience for users. So, if you have unnecessary code on your site and if your site is not loading quickly, try to get it fixed. Google wants at least the top section of each page of your Website to load in less than one second.
By executing the six steps above, you will increase rankings, traffic, and leads.