SEO can play a vital role in boosting your sales figures to new levels – in ways you’ve never imagined. We’re not talking about the SEO benefits of search engine ranking here. That is important, but SEO can serve your bottom line even more directly. What we’re zeroing in on here is how you can make Conversions/Sales much more likely once the prospect gets to your site.

When you understand your customer and what they’re looking for – and which keywords they’re using to do so – you have a goldmine. You can apply that to your website and make a huge impact on your bottom line. Here’s how it works.

To best understand how to take advantage of this SEO advantage, let’s imagine that you’re selling shoes online. One of your big sellers is this item: ‘red high heel shoes’. Not only that, let’s also assume you know that that specific phrase is overwhelmingly how women are searching to find, and buy, that item. What do you do?

Right now, you’re saying to yourself ‘Obviously I’m going to optimize the related pages for that keyphrase’. Absolutely right. But a lot of people don't take that as seriously as they should. It’s so ‘obvious’ they often don’t implement it like they should.

They also don’t understand an entire dimension that’s been proven by decades of copywriting and advertising studies. Miss that & you’re losing a huge opportunity to use your SEO and that tested knowledge to increase your profits. Here's why.

YOUR SEO SHOULD REFLECT YOUR PROSPECT’S DESIRE

When you start implementing your SEO, your PPC and your on-site copywriting, you need to line them all up. For example, when people do a search for ‘Red high heel shoes’, does your PPC ad have that phrase in it? Or does it just say that you sell ladies’ shoes? If you don’t have the full keyphrase, you’re missing the mark. Big time.

You must reflect back to the searcher with their own keyphrases. And you have to do it as closely as possible to the words, or keywords, that they use. It triggers something that’s both conscious and unconscious in the customer’s mind. It tells them they’ve found what they want and that they’re in the right place. That internal message, if you can trip it, means a sale is much more likely in your future; as long as you’re the one causing that connection in their mind.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR SEO SERVE YOUR SALES COLUMN

If you’ve done your SEO, and your keyword research correctly, then the customer should see that keyphrase (‘red high heel shoes’) on the page. Preferably in big letters at the top. That’s not the only thing you need to do.

You must also stick to those keyphrases. You’ve probably seen too many sites that drop the ball just as the customer arrives on-site. For some reason they’ll start labeling the red shoes as ‘scarlet pumps’ now, for instance. A small difference, but enough of one to lose the customer.

Another thing they do is write sales copy that doesn’t use the keyphrase or they might even have no sales copy at all. Instead of taking the opportunity to both increase the SEO & sell to the visitor a little more, they go silent. It’s like they walked off the field in the middle of the game. Why would you do that?

This is not a license for keyword stuffing, by the way. It is an encouragement to use the profitable keyphrases well and utilize them to keep moving the customer toward the cash register. Don’t forget that the job isn’t done once the visitor arrives. That’s just half the battle so don’t give up then.