Turning your website visitors into customers
Getting people to visit your website is one thing; persuading them to part with their cash once they are there is a different challenge entirely.
view article I recently made a mistake. I took on a client without first having
fully vetted them and their prospects for success. Several months
later, with a more accurate picture of the situation, things are not
looking so bright.
Here's what happened. The client had a URL that had been up for some
time but used for an altogether different purpose than what they were
turning it into. The URL didn't have much history and almost no
authority but we felt we'd get some mileage out of it. Boy were we
wrong. We should have realized up front that what we were dealing with
was essentially a brand new URL, despite it being online for a couple
of years.
But that's not the bad part. After we took the account we realized that
the client had no real plan for success. His site was a
sell-everything-we-can-get-our-hands-on type site. Everything from auto
accessories to baby stuff to electronics to swords. Essentially, they
are competing with Amazon.com and Wal-Mart and every niche site in
between.
To help provide focus to the SEO campaign we told the client that we
would focus only on one particular area of the site for optimization
for at least 12 months. We were hoping that this would give us enough
of an advantage while knowing that we'd still be competing against some
well-established sites in that particular area. But real the problem was they still had no UVP.
After several discussions with the client, the closest we got to a UVP
was superior customer service. We were hoping we'd be able to work from
that. Unfortunately, customer service is only a small draw when
comparing against more established sites that also have decent customer
service and the same products for the same price. It's not enough of a
strategic advantage to work from.
We spent several months working with the client to help develop their
site into one worthy of top search engine rankings. We recommended a
blog, which the client put up, posted thrice and promptly left to die.
We offered blogging support and writing service which the client
declined, only to come to us for support when his design team didn't
get the blog installed correctly the first time. We put forth ideas for
video and other content development which the client seemed to like and
may or may not implement.
But this isn't about the client. This is about my mistake. I took on a
site I knew had an extremely big uphill battle. We always try to
educate the client and provide accurate time frames, but sometimes you
get it wrong. And sometimes you just don't know what kind of hills you
have to climb until you really get in there. Which provides a few
valuable lessons.
Lesson 1: Know the terrain
In any marketing campaign it's important to know what you're getting
into before you really get into it. This is true both for the marketer
and the client. Only bad things happen if you don't fully--or as fully
as possible--understand the foundation with which you have to work
from. An understanding of the terrain allows you to...
Lesson 2: Reinforce accurate expectations
First you gotta provide accurate expectations, but continue to
reinforce that. Clients seem to forget early conversations and
contracts about expected performance and time frames. You simply have
to keep reiterating that time and time again. Don't sound defensive
about it, just let them know from time to time what they can be
expecting. Knowing the expectations makes it easier to...
Lesson 3: Get the client involved
No matter what clients want, good marketing cannot be done without the
client's involvement. There are just too many aspects of creating a
viable business for the client to dump all expectations onto the
marketer. Clients need to be involved in blogging, link building,
social media, and even site development issues. Getting them involved
early helps them understand that the marketer is not solely responsible
for their success. If they are not willing or able to get involved
then...
Lesson 4: Know when to cut your losses
Sometimes you have to lose the battle if you want to win the war. You
gotta know when to cut your losses and tell the client that despite all
the efforts you're not going to be able to meet their expectations. If
they want you in for the long haul, and know that it'll be a long haul,
great, but if they continue to have unrealistic expectations there
comes a time when you gotta say "I gotta go."
I don't like being in situations like these but sometimes they are
inevitable. But the more you can do to prevent them the better off both
you and the client will be better off in the long run. It's a difficult
situation to be in but some things you just don't know until it's too
late. Ultimately it's up to the client to know all this before they get
involved in business but as a good marketer, you need to be able to
spot a potentially losing situation before you get into it. Otherwise
you leave yourself open for all the baggage that comes with a
disgruntled client that is looking for a place to point the blame.
Source: Stoney deGeyter - searchengineguide.com