It's Not Just About Keywords
So, you’ve managed to direct plenty of traffic to your site, and you thought you were done?
How cute!
Most website owners and bloggers tend to concentrate on SEO a lot. After all, what better way to get people to your site than sound SEO practices, right?
We..eeelll, yes and no.
Sure, White Hat SEO ‘can’ get people to visit the site, but what happens after that is far more crucial. You see, the more visitors to your site, the higher the chances of a high bounce rate. And Google really doesn’t like those. Like at all.
If you attract plenty of traffic, you will be forgiven for being happy. But not for long!
Not if they don’t stick around long enough.
If people jump off your site within a few seconds – Houston, we have a problem.
Google makes 1984’s Big Brother seem like a rank amateur in comparison. Thanks to its relentless surveillance of websites.
It will know that your site is not providing quality information, regardless of your use of attractive (read search engine optimized) keywords. It will downgrade your rankings in its list accordingly.
You know what they say? “Out of sight- out of mind.’ Pfft… There goes your whole organic search strategy.
But, you can prevent it easily.
You see, what people want (and so does big bro Google) are ‘actual solutions to their problems.’ SEO can bring them up but it can’t keep them there. Not unless you give them what they are looking for.
Baseball Bats Galore!
Let us suppose you have a site that deals in baseball bats. Your meta keyword choice is “cheap baseball bats.”
Ok, Fair enough. Everyone wants one of those. Even people who don’t play the darned game.
But, if you get traffic from Timbuctoo and you retail the item only in downtown LA. You can bet Timbactoo-ians won’t be interested, and they will ‘bounce off.’
But if you were to attract your audience with something like ‘inexpensive baseball bats in Washington,’ You will be in business. Not only will you attract the desired target audience, but they will stick around long enough to browse your wares.
Weave a story
This brings us to the next part. Bats are a dime a dozen. Why should they stick around and buy one from your website? You will have to create a story behind every bat you sell.
The long tapering elegance of the bat… the sturdy grip.. the feel of the stadium.. yadda yadda yadda yadda. Not only will they stick long around to read it all (thus lowering your bounce rate), but you might clinch sales too.
So, think about it. Do you want a ‘hello-hi-and-bye’ with your target audience or a long-term relationship?
As good ole Captain Planet used to say: “The power is yours!”
On a side note, welcome to Fundamentally Content – where stories and marketing go hand in hand! Welcome to the future of content marketing!
