Search Engine Optimisation Should Be About More Than Just Your Website

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multi-platform-mobile-seo

Sometimes, marketers need to step back and focus on the big picture. You need to know how offline, social and email channels can integrate with SEO for major wins.

93% of all consumers all over the world use search before making a purchase — and on top of that, 86% of people are conducting non-branded queries. That’s a lot of people using search in the buying process!

The question for marketers is, “Are you optimizing for search? Are you optimizing for search on all channels?”

For most of us, when we think search and SEO, we think about our website. However, not only do people search on other channels, they also search based on what they see on other channels.

For marketers to truly be successful, SEO has to be synced up with other marketing approaches, starting with:

1. Offline Channels

A study from 2010 showed that 40% of online searchers were influenced by offline channels, while 67% of online users are driven to search from exposure to some offline channel. They saw something in print, on TV, on the highway, or perhaps, on the train during their morning commute and then headed over to the web to search for it. Your job is to ensure that when people take that step, they actually find our website. That’s the real value of good SEO.

The challenge is that there’s a good chance the person searching won’t be searching for your brand. Truthfully, they probably won’t even remember it. You need to align the SEO strategy with your offline marketing campaigns to ensure our site can be found. You need to know:

  • What taglines are being used?
  • What are the story lines?
  • What images are used?
  • What’s in the ad copy?
  • What makes the ads memorable?
  • How will people search for the ad?

These things should then all be integrated into the website and other online channels (think social), geared at capturing your offline audience who will be searching by what they remember.

Let’s use Nike as an example. It is a huge brand that recently put out a fantastic commercial commemorating Derek Jeter’s final season. However when people searched “derek jeter ad”, they will get a page full of news stories (and YouTube videos) about the his Gatorade commercial:

derek-jeter-ad-search-result

However, when you add “nike” on the keyword string, you might get the following results:

nike-derek-jeter-ad-search-result

The point is, if people can’t quickly and easily find a commercial put out by Nike, it’s going be really hard for them to find content put out by smaller, lesser-known brands.

2. The Power of Social Media

Recent poll revealed that 62% of consumers claimed that social media had no influence on their purchasing decision. However, in a separate report, over 90% of consumers said they would be more likely to buy a product if it had been recommended to them by someone they follow online.

So what does it mean? Well, consumers aren’t exactly sure how social media is influencing their buying decisions, but they are looking for (and listening to) product recommendations from their online friends. In fact, do a quick search on Twitter for “have a recommendation,” and you’ll get a lot of results:

twitter-recommendation-tweets

The key here for marketers is not just monitoring the right keywords to be able to find and respond to these types of queries, but making sure you are using the right terms in your updates so users can find you. People are no longer just searching through traditional search engines, and it’s up to companies to ensure they can be found elsewhere.

Give your social media team a list of keywords people are using to find your business. Offer them Webmaster Tools data, AdWords data, whatever you can to help them understand how people find your product or service. Your social media team must also be thinking about SEO.

3. Email Marketing

Did you know that 122,500,453,020 emails are sent every hour? Email is undoubtedly one of the most successful marketing tactics we have. 42% of businesses say email is one of their most effective lead generation channels, with 88% of B2B marketers citing email as THE most effective lead generation channel.

Gmail Promotions Tab Visual Enhancement

When the Promotions Tab hit Gmail, many marketers were worried. Would email open rates go down? Would click-through rates go down? Would people even read their emails? While the data are still rolling in, one thing is for certain: there are some exciting opportunities. Back in March, Google rolled out their Promotions tab visual enhancements, giving email marketers the opportunity to create Pinterest like messages using structured markup.

gmail-promotions-tab-testing

Marketing consultant Justin Briggs also talked about utilizing structured data in email during his SMX East presentation, where he noted the integration with Google Now. For email marketers, utilizing the structured markup tactics SEOs are currently using could help drive open rates, click through rates, and improve overall campaigns. If you are an email marketer or an SEO/email marketer, help yourself by checking out this post from Litmus, which provides a great overview of the Promotions tab and offers instructions on how to generate these messages.

Conclusion

SEO should be something that is thought about in all departments. From web development to offline advertising to paid search, email marketing, and more. You need to be aware of how your audience looks for your products and services. While you may not be able to break down the walls and integrate every SEO aspect into every department, you have to take it upon yourself to deliver opportunities to your teams when you can. One small win can send you toward your success.