Businesses should design their web pages and create content in a way that improves their organic Google results — but they should take proactive steps to attract traffic, as well. Nurturing and engaging buyers across channels, on different platforms and with different strategies drives traffic, boosts ROI and increases conversions. Here are six strategies to help you rely less on Google organic.
Use Native Advertising
Native advertising blends seamlessly into the platform on which it appears. From paid tweets to ads between swipes on Flipboard, native ads are designed to look and feel like the content that surrounds them — but it requires a delicate balance. Native ads should match the look and feel of the host platform's content, but advertisers should never attempt to fool a reader into thinking an ad is actual content. Research shows that 43 percent of users have felt deceived by native ads.
Hold Social Contests
Create buzz around your brand and drive people to your website by staging giveaways, holding contests and handing out prizes on social media. Instead of giving merchandise, give gift certificates as prizes. First, this forces recipients to visit your website to redeem their prize — but it also establishes brand continuity. By creating a gift certificate template, you can ensure that your brand's theme is projected to your social followers every time you hold a contest.
Create a Conversion Funnel
A conversion funnel traces the steps in a buyer's journey from discovery to conversion. It is important to create this model to anticipate the touchpoints your buyers will encounter during their purchasing process. This is different from a traditional sales funnel, because after learning about your brand or product on social media, your buyers will navigate a maze of channels that precede conversion. Here is a good primer on setting up a conversion funnel in Google Analytics.
Engage in Cross-Channel Marketing
Forbes refers to cross-channel marketing as "the science of using advanced analytics to allocate proportional credit to each marketing touch point across all online and offline channels, leading to a desired customer action." In English, cross-channel marketing puts the power in the hands of your customers by engaging them on their preferred platform — not yours. Use analytics to discover the proportion of customers who engaging on different channels, such as your blog, on Twitter, your website or your YouTube channel. From there, you can engage them on the channel of their choice.
Optimize for Mobile
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of mobile. Not only do modern customers expect a seamless mobile experience, but Google favors websites that optimize for mobile in their design and layout. Use responsive web design or some other strategy to ensure that your site looks and functions just as well on tablets and smartphones as it does on a PC.
Create Channel-Specific Landing Pages
More landing pages equals more conversions. Create landing pages that are designed specifically for platform that drove the customer to each specific landing page. Create one set of landing pages for social visitors and another for customers who arrived from PPC. PPC customers are arriving from near the bottom of the funnel, and are at the end of their buying journey. Social visitors, on the other hand, are arriving from the top of the funnel. These customers are just beginning their buying journey and may not be at all familiar with your brand or product.
Businesses should optimize their web pages and implement strong SEO. This will position them to achieve good results from organic Google searches — but they shouldn't stop there. Proactive steps, such as cross-channel marketing and native advertising, bolster your brand and add new layers to your digital strategy.
