The Three R's Of SEM Conversion

Okay, so that title is actually a bit of a red herring, as we're really talking about one R-word applied three times, but such is the importance of being 'relevant', it deserves triple the treatment.

As we continue into the 'Year of the Customer'* it's worth looking at 3 key areas in which relevancy plays an important part (*clarification: I personally don't subscribe to this, purely as every year of every business should be treated as such – well done to those that are still around if 2010 wasn't year of the customer)

Relevant Keywords

Whether it's paid or organic search you're dealing with, time spent researching your existing and potential site visitors is time well spent, and will form the foundations of your conversion strategy.

A unique benefit of search engine marketing is that a user states their 'intent' at the beginning of the journey – examples of this could be that the most important factor in the purchase decision is price ('holiday deals', 'cheap lcd tv'), or the quality of a product is key ('5 star hotel', 'designer shoes').

Dig into your analytics and find out which keywords are driving sales and which are responsible for poor quality traffic that doesn't quite engage with the site – you're bound to find a core group of non-brand terms that far out perform the rest. Build your keyword strategy around these because each sale they've driven counts as a vote for their relevancy.

A solid keyword strategy will allow you to take advantage of this intent and focus on appearing in the right place at the right time, whether it's through SEO or PPC.

Relevant Description

Now you know what's important to your potential customers, service this requirement. Let them know that you deliver what they need better than the rest. If it's PPC on value keywords, lead with the price, if it's organic ensure your meta description is tailored well enough to convey what you can offer (or a more advanced example, employ microformats to highlight reviews for your quality driven customers )

Relevant Content

Okay – so you've puffed up your feathers, stood out from the crowd and got the visitor onto your site. They've put their faith in you being able to deliver, and with this comes the double-edged sword of expectation! Don't fail now – reinforce the message that got them there in the first place, don't let their confidence in you wane, and ultimately deliver the experience they expect and deserve. Fail to do so and there are plenty of other options for the potential customer; fulfil the expectations and your chances of converting the potential customer are great.

Remember, search engines exist and are popular because they deliver users the results that are most relevant to their query. Aiming to do the same with search marketing and 'giving the customer what they want' is an essential (but often overlooked) SEM conversion optimisation strategy – you can change what you do, but can never change what the customer wants, so give them exactly that from start to finish.