Are your website pages REALLY strong enough to convert visitors to enquiries from increased spend/time on organic SEO? Save yourself time/budget with this guide.
Everyone wants their website to be highly visible in the organic Google results but it’s easy to get put off when faced by the reality of needing to invest budget and time on organic SEO.
While there are sometimes SEO experts that can get good results for a reasonable fee, the majority of SEO professionals need to charge a higher rate over a period of time in order to get results.
This means that organic SEO is often seen as something to commit to at a later stage.
However, there are people/companies that get caught out by doing this:
The problem is with both the customer and the SEO people they choose.
Both the customer AND the SEO people should be asking this very important question for each website page they are optimising for:
Is the website landing page (and supporting pages) strong enough to convert visitors to business?
If you, the customer, have not identified that your website pages aren’t strong enough, then an ethical SEO person should effectively be telling you:
Let’s go into more detail on this …
Here’s a detailed explanation of why I feel it’s essential to optimise website performance (and test it via Google Ads) before investing in organic SEO …
Paid advertising such as Google Ads (when set up correctly) attracts people who are actively looking for what you offer.
One of the most compelling reasons to utilise Google Ads is to test the ability of a website landing page (and supporting pages) to convert clicks to enquiries.
The outcomes from those paid ad clicks will tell you whether or not the website landing page (and supporting pages if they click off from there) are giving them enough.
This is far more attractive than all the time and waiting involved with optimising the website for organic SEO visibility, and THEN seeing whether the website can convert visitors to enquiries.
What’s the point in waiting weeks and months to see that a website isn’t performing well enough?
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is fundamental to the success of any online platform, and Google Ads provides a useful platform for experimentation and fine-tuning to maximise CRO.
Through diverse tests involving website page elements such as headlines, subheadings, imagery, calls-to-action (CTAs), contact form placements, and overall design, it’s possible to determine which elements resonate best with the target audience.
By analysing the conversion rates resulting from various combinations, you can make informed decisions to further optimise the landing page for higher conversions from those Google Ads clicks.
Obviously, if Google Ads clicks result in conversions from website pages that you have been adjusting, then you are putting yourself in a position where the same pages will convert well from organic SEO.
Optimising the allocation of resources is a crucial consideration for any business investing in marketing.
Making the wrong choice with marketing budget can result in unavailability of budget for other marketing activities.
Consider the following scenario:
Compare that with:
Running preliminary tests with Google Ads across a small group of targeted keywords offers a cost-effective strategy to understand the performance of specific keywords and advertising messages, plus the page people click through to.
This is preferable to dispersing resources across all potential keywords.
Keywords form the backbone of SEO strategies and Google Ads offers a treasure trove of insights into the performance of keywords.
Not only does it provide data on which keywords drive traffic to the website landing page, but it also sheds light on the keywords that translate into actual conversions.
Armed with this data, you can refine the strategy to accentuate the keywords that get better results, including considering them for your organic SEO strategy.
You may believe that your website landing page is strong enough, and so decide to send Google Ads traffic to that page.
If you are wrong then it will quickly be clear because metrics like high bounce rates or low conversion rates will be red flags, indicating areas that need attention.
Such feedback will be invaluable to you because it will influence adjustments in content, layout, or user experience, before commencing extensive organic SEO activity.
A/B testing is a methodological comparison of two versions of a webpage and is a powerful tool for ongoing refinement.
With Google Ads, you can implement A/B tests and send traffic to a choice of landing pages, which will help you to understand which version of the landing page performs optimally.
The end result is that you will discover which of the A/B tests gets the best results and you can then create a new A/B test by using the better-performing landing page as the base vs a new variation on that page.
You will get to the point where, via Google Ads testing to different landing pages, you will reach the best conversion rate possible (bearing in mind that not all clicks will be from people who make an immediate choice to take the actions you want them to after landing on the website).
When you get to that point then you are able to consider working on organic SEO to the website pages that have proven themselves via Google Ads traffic.
Data reigns supreme and Google Ads provides a wealth of data that leads to refinements, ultimately providing you with a good view of which keywords get the better results. That data becomes the bedrock for informed decisions in organic SEO strategy.
By tailoring your organic SEO efforts based on successful elements identified through paid advertising campaigns, you set the stage for a more efficient and effective SEO campaign.
Investing in organic SEO without prior testing carries inherent risks, whereas testing the waters through Google Ads mitigates this risk substantially.
It’s like dipping your toe in the water before diving into the pool and ensures that your organic SEO budget is directed towards webpages with proven conversion potential, mitigating the risk of wasted resources.
In summary, using Google Ads to assess webpage strength before delving into organic SEO is a prudent and strategic approach.
It provides immediate and actionable feedback, cost-effectiveness, and data-driven insights that are essential planning for a successful organic SEO campaign.