The Biggest Marketing Mistake and How to Fix It

Marketing is defined as: The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. 

Based on that definition, marketing is an activity… An ACTION.

So the biggest mistake in marketing… forgetting the action. 

In today’s society, a business really isn’t complete if it doesn’t have some sort of online presence.  Even if it has a simple website that serves as nothing more than a digital business card, a business gains credibility and reputation via the online space.  Without that presence, an increasing number of people view companies as not fully legitimate, no matter how old and established they are.

If a company’s online marketing (website and content) is the vehicle, then SEO is the engine in that vehicle.  Basically, without the engine, the website will sit there and look pretty but can’t go anywhere.

Looking back at the above definition of marketing, there is a critical element that is not stated but makes a difference as to whether marketing is simply a statement or an action.

If a company creates an offer for their clients but never tells them how to take advantage of it, all they are doing is making a statement of information. 

Consider this.  A company puts up a website that has pictures and states that they sell clothes but does not put an address of the physical location of the store, or have an online store with a working shopping cart and checkout platform, then they are only making a statement.  They are giving information but not actually creating and communicating and offering to their clients.

The actual definition of what’s missing is the “Call To Action” or the CTA.

Giving people the instruction and the final step to completing a process is the difference between marketing being a statement vs and action. Complete marketing lets the customers know to either come into the store and gives the address or to visit the online store and gives a link to click on to complete their shopping experience.

Simply put, marketing is only marketing when there is a Call To Action associated with it.

Going back to the example of the car.  If The marketing statement is the car, and SEO is the engine, then the call to action is turning the key and pushing the gas pedal.

Basically, marketing MUST be completed with a call to action, and SEO must be implemented with the completion of the call to action as the goal for the end result.

All too often we have prospective clients coming in needing to reach greater numbers of quality prospective clients or customers and are looking at the potential of SEO to help them achieve that goal, yet never realizing that it is futile if they aren’t giving their clients the opportunity to take the action they are looking for.

Sure, we can provide quality SEO and get a huge engine running for a company but without a CTA, the company still will not grow.

On the flip side, we have also had clients come to us with a wonderful website, complete with perfect sales funnels and multiple CTA’s, yet the SEO they have had previously performed on their site is getting them nowhere.  The vast majority of the time we find that the SEO was done with the wrong goal in mind and while the site might be getting additional traffic, it is not usually the kind of traffic that would have any reason to take advantage of the available offer.

It’s like trying to put a little 4-cylinder engine in a dump truck or trying to put a Lamborghini engine in a scooter.  Either way, the results are incorrect.

That is why it is vitally important to first have a clear call to action, and second to ensure that the SEO strategy is perfectly aligned with that call to action.

Once the two aspects are aligned, the resulting machine is one that will get the company website where it needs to go.  Once it is going then the little tweaks can take place to ensure completely maximized marketing strategy. Without momentum and results, there is no way to know what even needs to be tweaked much less how to tweak it.

Staying true to the meaning of marketing…

Are you ready for the call to action???  Here it is:

We specialize in optimizing websites to technical SEO specs and performing full SEO services to maximize the potential of your website’s reputation and reach.  Part of that included

If you have any concerns about this topic and how your website stacks up to the competition, contact us.  We would be happy to do a free analysis of your site and let you know where it stands and what the potential is. 

Click Here to find out more about our SEO services and how we can help you.

Often Overlooked Keyword Opportunities for Search Engine Domination

Overlooked Keyword Opportunities?

For those who truly understand the significance of ranking in the top 5 for your best keywords, then you will also appreciate having some insight into keyword opportunities that can yield great results and are often overlooked.

So what’s the trick?

It’s actually quite simple… Think Seasonally.

Here is the thing, it really doesn’t matter what you are marketing, whether it is products, services, hotels, activities, ideas or even fundraising. Regardless of what it is, there is always a seasonal spin on it.

Sometimes finding your seasonal keywords will be as easy as adding the season to your primary keyword like “winter” to “resorts” but there are a lot of ideas that take just a little bit of thought yet can yield incredible results.

A lot of the seasonal keywords are going to be more along the lines of ideas that are relevant to your primary keywords or are directly related to problems they solve.

For example instead of “giving to charity” a great season option might be “year-end giving for tax advantages.”

Or instead of “roofing” it might be “best roofing for snowy winters.”

Two things are happening here.  One is the use of something we call a “long tail keyword” and the second is taking advantage of keywords with low competition.

General keywords like “roofing” may technically get more traffic but they are also higher competition and usually more difficult to get quality rankings for, much less rank domination.  Not to mention, because of their generality the traffic is also more general and not quite as likely to be looking for what it is that your company has to offer.

It is still important to rank for general keywords, but sometimes the amount of traffic and quality of traffic can be much better by using several more specific long tail keywords than it can for a single general keyword.  

The effort put forth to rank the long tail keywords is typically much less than it is for a general keyword.

That is where the seasonal keywords come in.  

Think along the lines of problems that can be solved seasonally for your company.  Then put yourself in the shoes of the person looking to solve that problem and think about the exact words you might use to find the answer to the problem. Those will be your long tail keywords.

Keep in mind that there may be reverse problems for opposite seasons, so you have just doubled your available keyword traffic potential.

Once you have considered every season, go back and see if there are sub-categories to the long tail keywords you have come up with.

Remember that “seasons” don’t just include weather seasons like spring, summer, fall and winter. They could include “tax season” or “construction season” or “spring break” or “vacation season” or “hunting season.”  There are literally hundreds of ideas.

Specific strategy with the greatest outcome

Some of the most effective SEO marketing strategies are those that are geared more toward specific purposes than general categories.

Most of our clients have noticed a great increase in the quality of their website traffic when we have employed such strategies.  The rate of conversion has increased by up to 60% because the traffic is so targeted.

Using the roofing example:

Who do you think will the most likely to look into what you have to offer?  Someone generally looking for “roofing” which may or may not include the kind of roofing services or product you provide.  Or someone who is looking specifically for both the product AND the service you provide?  

In addition, how do you think their mind will be framed if you come up on the top of the list for the very thing they are looking for?  They are already going to have the perspective that you have the expertise and therefore established credibility on the matter.  

Expertise and credibility are priceless in the online marketing game!

Essentially, the possibilities are endless because this type of strategy can be implemented for EVERY service or product you have available.

It also creates diversity in the search engines and builds your site’s credibility and trust factor with the search engines and helps to solidify your higher ranking positions. And THAT is a wonderful thing as well.

So go make your list of seasonal keywords and build a strategy that will help your site and company experience significant growth.

If you would like to have a strategy like this developed and implemented for your company, contact us and we will be happy to help you out.  Just click here: Denver SEO