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Creating the complete SEO experience

Posted on 08. Jul, 2009 by admin in SEO

You may have noticed that no one buys mere goods or ser­vices these days, they buy the experience.

When I attend my gym, the com­pany isn’t just wor­ried about pro­vid­ing me with decent equip­ment and classes; it wants to ensure my expe­ri­ence is as good as it could be.

From the entrance, I am bom­barded with pos­i­tive mar­ket­ing cam­paigns; happy, healthy recep­tion­ists; smoothie stands; and uplift­ing pop music. The row­ing machine almost seems an afterthought.

It is the same every­where. Go for a hair­cut and you get a mas­sage and a latte. Busi­nesses recog­nise that it isn’t just the end prod­uct peo­ple care about, they want a pack­age. That doesn’t mean just extras, although of course they help cus­tomers feel cared for, the entire inter­ac­tion needs to be positive.

Search engine opti­mi­sa­tion (SEO) is a weird one. The end prod­uct is entirely mea­sur­able, the ben­e­fits are easy to see. Has the client’s vis­i­bil­ity increased? Have vis­i­tor num­bers risen? Are those vis­i­tors rel­e­vant and are they car­ry­ing out the hoped-for action once they hit the site? These are sim­ple to monitor.

Yet, cor­po­rate clients also like to receive the expe­ri­ence, the pack­age, to feel cared for. So what can we in the SEO indus­try do to achieve that? Here are my ideas, feel free to add your own in the com­ments if you think I have missed anything.

Be a person

It is so easy in the online mar­ket­ing sec­tor to never meet your clients but sim­ply email. Per­haps the occa­sional chat on the phone might be in order but it is all too easy to allow com­mu­ni­ca­tions to become func­tional and minimal.

Be a per­son to your clients. If it is at all pos­si­ble, go and see them once you’ve won their busi­ness, get to know their names and inter­ests, send them a Christ­mas card. 

It is not hard, it does not cost a great deal but it makes for a much stronger work­ing relationship.

Be con­tactable

Give them your num­ber. Tell them you are always pleased to hear from them or to answer any ques­tions they may have and encour­age them to pick up the phone when­ever they need to.

This will make your clients feel more con­nected, more able to approach you with con­cerns and ques­tions and less likely to puz­zle or fume in silence.

Don’t for­get, if you are a client’s con­tact and you go incom­mu­ni­cado for what­ever rea­son, hol­i­day, parental leave, con­fer­ences, what­ever, it is impor­tant to let them know and give them an alter­na­tive con­tact name. Few things will upset a client as much as not receiv­ing a response.

Be at a decent location

Now, if you’re rais­ing an eye­brow at this one, bear with me. Most busi­nesses have an office but some SEO start-ups are oper­at­ing out of the developer’s spare room. SEOp­ti­mise is lucky enough to have offices at the Oxford Sci­ence Park, but not every­one has reached that point in their busi­ness development.

If you lack an office, or if your build­ing is in some less-than-attractive area, it may be pru­dent to make use of a vir­tual office. This means you can have a city-centre address but even more impor­tantly, a recep­tion­ist service.

Most vir­tual offices will be able to rent you a meet­ing room at your vir­tual loca­tion, so you can meet your clients at the more impres­sive address and enhance their expe­ri­ence this way. Cyn­i­cal per­haps, but def­i­nitely a sen­si­ble option for some smaller com­pa­nies and one-man-bands.

Be author­i­ta­tive

Com­pa­nies invest a great deal of money in their search cam­paigns and it is reas­sur­ing to know they have entrusted that cash with a pro­fes­sional who really knows their stuff.

By blog­ging, speak­ing at con­fer­ences if pos­si­ble and pro­vid­ing guest arti­cles, an SEO pro­fes­sional can develop a rep­u­ta­tion. It may take time and plan­ning to cre­ate such arti­cles but it adds to your clients’ over­all SEO expe­ri­ence and also makes you more of a per­son­able individual.

Be good

I hardly need to add but it is impor­tant to remem­ber that all of the above is mere win­dow dress­ing. It is impor­tant but it is an impor­tant extra, not the ser­vice itself.

The ulti­mate thing that deter­mines the SEO expe­ri­ence is the suc­cess of the cam­paign. It doesn’t mat­ter how easy you are to con­tact, how author­i­ta­tive and where your office is located if the ser­vice you deliver is less than expected.

It is impor­tant not to lose sight of that when con­sid­er­ing enhanc­ing the over­all pack­age your SEO com­pany offers.

Related Posts:

• Reverse SEO in Online Rep­u­ta­tion Man­age­ment (ORM)
• Blog Search Engine Optimization
• Search Engine Opti­miza­tion and Marketing
• The Abuse of Search Engine Optimization
• What is right with Search Engine Optimization?

Tags: boost-the-traffic, engines, negative, potential-customers, search-engine, the-traffic, yahoo, you-how