SEO, Driving Traffic, and Increasing Sales

SEO, Driving Traffic, and Increasing Sales:from Sales and Sales Management Blog by Paul McCord
I’ve run across a number of small businesses lately that have flushed good dollars down the drain with untargeted or inexperienced SEO (search engine optimization) services.
If you have a website, I’m sure you’ve received the email or call from someone trying to sell you SEO services with the promise of increasing your page ranking in search engines which will drive more traffic to your site and thus increase your on-line sales.  And if you’ve bitten on any of these sales calls you have probably discovered on-line selling isn’t as easy as paying someone to optimize your website.
Don’t get me wrong, you need traffic to your website and SEO can be an important part of attracting that traffic.
The problem with the typical search engine optimization solicitation you get is from a company that doesn’t really understand your business or your market.  In order to gain the knowledge they need in order to be able to really help you target a specific market, they must rely on you to give them information and direction. 
So they ask questions that they believe will help them gain the knowledge and understanding they need. 
The problem is often they aren’t asking the right questions for your product or service.  Worse, many will simply ask you to tell them what you want and need, expecting you to be the expert on what will get you where you want to be.  Even worse, some simply won’t ask anything and will wing it, hoping that by simply driving more people to your site you’ll get more sales.
The fact is you don’t need SEO; you need targeted SEO. 
You don’t need increased traffic; you need increased quality traffic.
You don’t need people visiting your website; you need prospects visiting your site.
You need someone that understands what it is you do and who you need to bring to your site.  You need someone that has the background to understand your business and who has a record of reaching your market.
Search engine optimization does not equate to increased quality traffic and thus increased sales unless it is laser focused to bring you the right visitors. 
By all means spend the necessary dollars on optimizing your website.  But spend those dollars wisely.  Do your homework and hire someone who has a track record targeting and attracting your market.  If you don’t, you may increase traffic but you more then likely won’t justify the expense with increased sales.

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