In our minds, we all know that potential customers and clients are concerned about the “what’s in it for me” factor, but have you gone through a review of your website and marketing materials to make sure you are addressing your customer’s needs in your copy? Are you using the keywords they would be using to find your products or services in the search engines?
If you’re not sure or could use a refresher, here are a few simple ways to get your site copy where it needs to be for top performance:
- Conduct a simple Keyword search on Google
- Visit Google and perform a few searches for words or phrases your customers may be using to find your product or service. Is your company in the first 20 results? Great! If not, check out the competitors at the top to see what keywords they are using, and determine whether you should build those into your site.
- Next, read through a few of the most important pages on your site. Do your most important pages contain strong use of the keywords you searched for, or do they focus on the product/service/company? If you are lacking in keywords, now would be a good time to consider rewriting those pages.
- Scope out the Competition
- Beyond the top-ranked sites in the above example, also check out the websites of your closest competitors. Are they written from the customer’s point of view? Do they address needs or benefits that you do not? This is a great way to determine whether you can build onto or revise your site to better meet your market’s needs.
- Ask a trusted friend (in a different industry)
- Friends and colleagues who are willing to be bluntly honest with you can be a great source of advice when considering how to make your website or marketing materials more customer-focused. Ask for open feedback from those around you, or post your site to a forum where others can voice their opinions and recommendations.
- Take the First Step
- If you find that your website needs some work in the customer-benefits area, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to completely scrap and rebuild the site. Most likely, it will be a matter of rewriting some page copy. The easiest and quickest way to develop customer-focused content is through blogging. You can add a simple blog to your site, and write once or twice a week on a topic that is interesting to your customers. Use the keywords you found important to determine what topics to focus on, and just start writing. You’ll be amazed at the traction you can start seeing by taking this simple step.
If you’re not sure how to get started, contact us at Grapevine Consulting for a Complimentary Search Engine Optimization Analysis.
– Melissa Albano