While catching up on some reading, I’m going through this stack of “Men’s Journal” magazines and I find 3-4 articles filled with conventional wisdom that isn’t.
For example, all of our lives we’ve been told that to supplement our quest for good health, we should take a daily multi-vitamin. I’m sure you’ve heard that too, right?
Now, researchers are saying that it’s nothing but a waste of money and does little for our health at all.
Another example dealt with certain types of surgery. Arthroscopic knee surgery was mentioned and doctors have now concluded that in most cases the long term result is the same as doing nothing at all.
It’s interesting to me because I had that surgery twice in the 80’s and it didn’t really fix anything.
These types of conventional wisdom that turn out not to be so, confuse the heck out of most of us. The same is true of information and ideas thrown around related to marketing your business.
Perhaps you’ve tried SEO in the past and then found your site was penalized by Google for doing it. One could logically conclude that the conventional wisdom is that: SEO is bad. But in a recent interview, Google’s Matt Cutts told everyone that search engines that don’t use backlinks (the external ranking factor that makes SEO work) don’t work.
The take away then is that link building and SEO are good – if done properly.
Here’s another.
You’ve been told that social media was critical for your SEO and ranking because Google was keeping tabs on how many people like and share your content.
Not true after all. It’s possible that search engines may not even be able to correlate the “social signals” to your website. We’ll talk more about what social media is good for, where it’s essential even, later this week.
My point is this: sales is still very similar to the way it’s always been. You get a lead on someone who has an issue that your product or service can solve. If that person likes and trusts you, they may be open to learning about your solution. If everything fits together, you win the sale.
Online, the focus has gotten much clearer in the last year or so. People who have an issue they need to solve turn to search engines most when they are looking for solutions. If they find your business and you have an easy-to-follow conversion process, you get a lead, just like before.
Then, if the person who needs what you offer likes and trusts you more than your competitor and everything else fits together, you get the sale.
To increase the number of leads you get, you need to be found when (and where) people are searching for solutions to their issues. Not just on page 1 of Google and other search engines, but in the top 3 spots in search results, as 70% of prospects will choose one of those 3.
So, open your web browser and type in your most important keyword (do it now, I’ll wait). If your site isn’t in the top 3 spots, you’re missing opportunities that could be costing you a fortune.
If you don’t like losing out on sales in this way, perhaps we should talk. You can contact me here.
