Competition is healthy but when you are continually 2nd or 3rd place to your major competitors and there is nothing you can do to out beat them, then you have some serious questioning to ask yourself to see what your doing is actually right?
With over 14 billion websites on the internet it is no wonder 99% of websites businesses fail. But with this in mind, you are doomed right from the beginning if you do not have the right tools to get going.
So for the more experienced bloggers and internet marketers out there, let me ask you this, and answer yourself truthfully, out of all the pages you have on your website, which are the ones that are converting as a result of being on the first page of Google, and are they converting? How many pages are converting? And are competitors getting ahead of you time after time for certain key phrases for those pages in the search engines and taking away your potential sales?
I know for me out of say 200 pages or so in my personal blog, around 5% of those pages are converting into sales, for me this is comfortable. I would like to increase this though to around 10%. But the key trick here is to make sure those pages are not only optimised but have links so that buyers can easily check out.
Here are the 3 real main core elements:
- Make sure the page is optimised for the keywords you are targeting and continually do backlinks to that page on social pages, such as Hub Pages, Squidoo and BlogSpot sites.
- Do not add too much hype to the page, people buy when you funnel them through, make sure people engage and then read through and by the time they have finished reading the page, they are gobsmacked and want to try the product you have subtly mentioned on the page.
- Set up door way pages / sites that also link to those pages and that are niche relevant to the topic page that you are targeting.
Now this is super easy provided you have low competing page competition and highly searched pages for your headlines with consistent search trends. So make sure you do your research first before posting content and make sure your headlines are gold!
Now how do we create extra buzz, build brand and awareness to make our pages convert even easier?
Well lets start off with easy ones and work our way down?
- Follow a hundred gurus in your niche on Twitter each day, this will allow others to see you and add you too!
- Add 30 Facebook friends each day until you hit 5000 friends, but make sure that they have similar interests to you. Once you have loads of friends you can send them invites to your fan pages. Then by having them on your fan pages you can send them messages each couple of weeks to get them coming to your landing pages / post pages on your site.
- Targeted Email lists, gathering emails from the same niche, not just any emails, you can do this by setting up squeeze pages and optin’s on your side panel of your website. Offer a free gift or ebook to get them to optin.
- Branding yourself or your company in every way shape and form, get your own t-shirts made up, wear them on your site and YouTube videos. Getting people to remember you or your company through direct traffic is vital long term.
- Engage with other bloggers, bloggers are usually very active and help create buzz and hype to your site when they come by and leave comments, your buyers will see positive comments and make their buying decision based around that.
- Networking through an SEO Community that others have similar interest in is vital, to constantly get new ideas and support and help you keep up to date with new search technology so that you can stay ahead of the game. I recommend you use GSEO.net for that.
I hope this has helped you get a better understanding for what techniques really crunch your competition and drive you sales. Are you using any of these techniques? Please let me if any of these techniques have worked for you!
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Tagged as: Blogging, Branding, Convert Sales, Email Lists, Landing Pages, Sales Conversions, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, social networking
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Good points here, but they’re more useful for virtual products like e-books, or cool “quirky” products that can go viral, not stuff like vitamins, or supplements. How do you create awareness for a product that’s generally regarded as boring?
Henway @ Candida´s last [type] ..Tricking your metabolism
Hi Henway, there is no such thing as a boring product, we can make it as exciting or boring as we like. If we create buzz and promote it in a fun way then it becomes exciting.
I learnt this even in Graphic Design, starting from the branding. I will give you one example, if you took a photo of vitamins with no background it would look plain and boring right? What about having a picture of a waterfall in the background with eye grabbing text over it, I mean there are loads of ways to make something boring sell able we just have to think creatively!
Nicely written post Dan. Summarised the right elements early on and then gave a great little how to guide that shows not only the importance of a sales funnel type setup, but also how simple daily steps can add up in the long run – it’s what it’s all about after all right?
Thanks mate
Alex@keyword research tips´s last [type] ..Want Quality backlinks Follow Me!
Hi Alex,
Thanks very much, yeah that’s right if you follow certain steps that I suggested this will help a lot!
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the pointers you have mentioned. These were never mentioned in the Firestorm SEO I recently purchased.
Felicia @ No Deposit Poker´s last [type] ..William Thorson leaves Team PokerStars Pro
Hi Felicia, you are very welcome, glad you enjoyed!
That’s a good point Dan, especially in terms of branding and building good relationships with your subscribers and other bloggers. With the rise of social media and networks, we need to gain trust from our friends and visitors especially in making a sales pitch to your affiliate product. This is where you possibly eat your SEO competition on the plate and don’t left your stomach feel empty about it.
Jeff Caceres´s last [type] ..Make Money With The 3-Tier ShoeMoney System Affiliate Program
Useful points, if you are doing the right thing on the web you can actually get to your dreams, but its more important is knowing what is expected and doing it correctly.
Networking and building a good relationship among people in your niche is a great way to get the going go.. Though Networking takes time and effort
Biodun @ UK ecommerce forum´s last [type] ..hi just arrive
Yes indeed, to convert sales pages, we must not only do SEO and the door way pages I was talking about, but also the social networking side of it that’s why I suggest to concentrate on traffic as well to convert those pages you are optimising!
I agree that advertising your products constantly and blatantly is not going to bring in any positive results. Using indirect advertising is definitely the way to go. When people don’t think that you are actually promoting something, the chances of increasing your sales’ count is the highest.
Daniel Sharkov´s last [type] ..3 Benefits of Adding a Blog to Your Website
Hi Daniel,
This is exactly right, optimising your pages discreetly and getting direct traffic then converting those pages with properly formatted pages that are not too over rated and promotional is the key!
I agree….sorta.
I don’t think there is a secret sauce formulaic approach to sales – people are people.
Meaning: everyone at any given time is at a different stage in the “buying” or “browsing” or “entertain me” phases online.
If I were to show you a few landing pages of mine that convert well – you’d say I was just a tad over the top on one (well, two) – and they’ve paid me thousands this year in passive income.
What matters is not the subtlety of your sales, but who is landing there, and at what stage are they in at the time they reach your page?
If your keyword research was done properly, and you optimized for a “late in the buying process” keyword, then going “over the top” as you put it converts.
I’m not advocating the Las Vegas Strip approach to sales, but I don’t think the formula approach (always be this or that way) is going to work.
It all depends on your keyword research, and knowing your audience, and split testing results.
Otherwise, great points. Like the sales funnel.
JamestheJust on Elance´s last [type] ..Recommended Tools
Hi Daniel,
Yes that is exactly right, optimising your pages discreetly and getting direct traffic then converting those pages with properly formatted pages that are not too over rated and promotional is the key and is more or less the moral to this post!
Hi Dan,
Good to see you here! Now from the way this article is written, I have worked myself backwards. I focus more on the branding and buzz rather than the SEO. However, I’ll admit, I’m kind of off on the optimization part even though I do the title, keywords, description as well as permalinks, alt tags and backlinking onsite.
What I need work on is the keyword research part. While the traffic for my site has been organic so far, mostly from referring sites, I know it takes a little time to see any real results. Hopefully as I get into niche site building, the SEO part will get better.
Thanks for the discussion and post!
Cheers!
Thu
Thu Nguyen@BloggingFor´s last [type] ..Where This Blog Has Been – Sept 12 to 18- 2010
Hi Thu,
The key here is to convert your SEO into sales, I hope you can understand how this came across in my post, Thanks for the kind comments, appreciate it!
Hey Dan,
Great Post man. You’ve made amazing points.
I think networking is very important.
Thanks for sharing this great Post Daniel.
Keep up the awesome work!
Hey Devesh,
Thanks buddy!
No doubt these are good points you raised but the question remains hidden. There is lot more about SEO than what meets the eye. Nevertheless, a very good attempt.
Umair´s last [type] ..Mozilla Seabird- Crafting the Future of Mobile Phones
Thanks Umair, that’s right a lot to be considered!
Have a nice day!
Dan Lew´s last [type] ..5 Powerful Ways To Make Money Online Indirectly
Nice tips @Dan. I do agree that out beating the top 3 is not an easy work esp. for the hot keywords. My advice is to keep you at that level, doing an indepth survey and see why you can not out-beat them later
Tinh´s last [type] ..5 Guaranteed Methods To Boost Your Feed Subscribers
Hi Tinh,
Thanks, Out beating is enjoyable the idea is to not be out beated for too long!
Dan Lew´s last [type] ..5 Powerful Ways To Make Money Online Indirectly
great bLog with great points bro,
nyce points mentioned in post!
THANKS 4 sharE!
shashank chinchli´s last [type] ..‘The Flintstones’ turn 50 -The New Google Doodle
The bottom line is:
Make sure your on page SEO factors are optimized and build more backlinks to your page (not domain! page) than your competition.
Make sure to get backlinks from various sources and of high quality. It is not the number of backlinks you have but the quality of the backlinks that makes the difference.
D Baker´s last [type] ..Are You Hiding Your Affiliate Links From Google
Another interesting post here.And it help a lot to SEO beginners out there.
Thanks to this post,I add some of your information about SEO.good job mate and wish you good luck!
seph from search engine optimization´s last [type] ..Site Map
Very well explained article. Good job I really appreciate your effort. I am always glad to learn about new ways to increase my search engine optimization. This is a very useful tool and solutions.
Many can benefit from this article especially for newbies like me. Thank you so much! You’re a big help.
Great SEO information. Thanks for the tips. I’m off to follow some more guru’s in twitter.
John@How To Use Article Marketing´s last [type] ..Article Marketing – How to Use Article Marketing After Google’s Panda Farmer
Great stuff !! now I think I can bit my competitors using this tips .!! Thanks bro because you almost solve my problem !!
Amol Mhetre´s last [type] ..Establishing Leads for Companies will Make Money Online