"How can SEO hurt your business?" asks Olga Taylor in an article at MarketingProfs. "Consider a site that is not user-friendly, is repulsive to visitors (or attractive to the wrong kind), isn't competitive, or is lacking a clear value proposition and the support required to respond to inquiries or follow up on leads." In other words, she argues, why would you spend time and energy driving traffic to a site no one wants to visit?

According to Taylor, you're not ready for SEO until you've determined the best use for your website. Most sites serve three functions—selling, educating and engaging—and each has the potential to work against the other, she argues. That's why businesses should focus primarily on one of these website goals:

• Sales. Offering clearly packaged products and services for qualified buyers who are ready to make an immediate purchase.
• Education. Explaining features, benefits and concepts to visitors who are earlier in the buying process. But educate with care: "It can also confuse and turn off a buyer who thought he knew what he wanted to buy," Taylor warns. "[I]n this case, too much educational content can actually hurt sales."
• Engagement. Building relationships by encouraging visitors to leave blog comments, sign up for newsletters, take surveys and the like. But be careful about spending resources on visitors who don't have purchasing or influencing authority, she cautions.

"If two or more of these tasks are equally important," says Taylor, "each can be assigned to a separate portion of the website (a microsite, for example) and treated separately for SEO purposes."

The Po!nt: First, decide what you want. Then optimize. Your online marketing strategy won't deliver the results you seek until your site is infused with goal-oriented content.

→ end article preview
Read the Full Article