In the digital era of retargeting and paid ads, driving traffic to your website is not enough to sustain a great conversion rate. This article will discuss several of the components that your business can address for boosting your traffic to conversion ratio.

The reason that retargeting works so well for conversion is that the traffic is returning to see one of the following three things:

1. The same offer that they have already seen.
2. A similar offer that has increased in value because of a bonus or discount that was added.
3. A new offer being presented by a familiar company/brand that the user has already shown interest in or visited within the past 90-180 days.

Where does “getting found” begin? Read the Get Found Guide

And… If retargeting is the “now” in advertising, then does SEO still matter at all?

The answer is Yes and Not Entirely.

Let me first say that “yes” SEO does matter. Organic search rankings will remain one of the many components that a well established brand can look towards for traffic.

SEO is not entirely the only thing that matters because there are so many other ways to send qualified traffic over to your website.

Let’s face it, people go searching on Google, Yahoo or Bing to: solve a problem, answer a question or find a solution by finding one of three things in the search results:

1. Information
2. A Product
3. A Service

We can call this the Solve-Answer-Find(SAF) equalizer. Regardless of the medium the SAF is provided on, whether it be:

• Reviews
• Videos
• Social Proof
• Website Design
• Blogs
• Social Media Profiles
• Ads/Offers

The SAF that gets the initial bit of traffic is what makes retargeting possible!

Your brand must deliver one or more SAF’s before a user will consider making a buying decision. As Gary Vee recommends, three values for every offer made. Hence his book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.” Gary explains that delivering value must come in multiples before a consumer will be inclined to buy your stuff.

Chris Record, creator of Dark Post Profits 2.0 believes that your company should deliver five values to the list before the buy will be made.

It makes sense…

Your prospects will need to have some interaction with your brand on at least three occasions before they are comfortable making a buying decision.

That’s where the SAF’s come in. They are the cards that your company can deal between each offer. Perhaps the 80-20 rule is beginning to more look like the 60-5 and 35 rule?

Sixty percent value, five percent offers and thirty five percent social recommendation.

Delivering information on just about any platform, using just about any medium is acceptable, as long as your target audience enjoys spending time there. It can be a podcast on iTunes, a tweet with a link to an article, a video, or the combination of many. Bottom line you need to deliver value to the right people before they will buy.

Chris Record even suggests that your business should have two lists:

• The list of broad traffic that comes to your site.
• The targeted list of people that continue to return to engage with your SAF

Remember that your website cannot retarget someone until they have visited your website once before.

Is SEO entirely the end all-be all of traffic?

The answer to that is no.

SEO is only one piece of the many components that make up the Sales & Marketing umbrella for a business. SEO certainly helps with becoming a trusted authority on a subject. It is one of the many ways to deliver your company’s SAF’s.

Simply put, the more times that your website provides one or more SAF via organic SEO the more likely your website will begin to build trust and be deemed an authority in your industry or niche. That is where SEO plays it’s part.

Just about any business can buy ads that will generate some traffic to their website.

Deliver valuable information to your target demographic and if they consume it enough times eventually they will begin consuming your products.

Returning visitors are more likely to buy, which is precisely why you need to get found first before you can split your efforts between new visitors and returning visitors.

The key to great conversion starts with the fundamentals…

The Fundamentals of Getting Found

Not everyone will buy your products or services, the most important thing is to target the right audience. When you are targeting the right people your website traffic will produce better results. The first of the fundamental steps in conversion is knowing:

Who You Are Marketing To!

If you are not crystal clear in your understand of your target consumers then your site will struggle to get found.

Step #1 – Get Found By The Right People

Fundamentally your organic SEO should be optimized for the terms that your target demographic will be searching for. Just the same as your ads should target the right people that you want to reach with your SAF’s.

Whether your site is getting found because of ads or SEO, you must find the right people to present your offers and information to (if you want the traffic that finds your website to take the next desired action).

Work Smart Tip: If you are unsure who you’re marketing to then check out the competition…

The simplest place to start when identifying your target audience is to look at the competition. Determine what they are doing right and who they are trying to reach.

This can be done by going to Google and beginning some simple searches for terms that would help your website get found by the right audience.

Let’s say that you are in the Karate School niche, you might start by looking on Google for Karate Schools in [Your City], for example:

Karate Schools Santa Monica or Santa Monica Karate Classes

There are a few things that you will want to pay close attention to:

1. What does your competition do right?
2. Are they beating you? If so, why?
3. What can you learn from the competitors?
4. If your website gets found for the same keyword phrase would the user be more inclined or less inclined to choose your company over the competitor?
5. Why would they choose your business over the others on page one?
6. What SAF’s are they delivering that you can model after?
7. How does it feel to be a consumer going through their customer journey?
   And, how does it feel to be a consumer that is going through your customer journey?
8. What does their source code tell us?

One of the oldest ways to figure out what keywords a website is using to find customers is to view the source code. Depending on your browser it may be called view page source or view source.

Not all sites have the source code organized in a way that it will tell you everything, in fact some have a sentence that says things like: “Are you looking for my keywords? I have hidden them.”

In the source code many things often reveal themselves to those with an eye for what to look for.

• The theme they are using.
• The code that their website is written in.
• The plugins they have installed on their website.
• The keywords and phrases that are used throughout the page.

This may seem boring to you but, if you are having trouble getting traffic or clients from your website, then the chances are:

A. You really don’t know you’re ideal customer as good as you may have thought.
B. You have not done enough competition analysis to learn what you need to know.
C. You have not explored your customer journey or your competitors customer journey through the lens of a potential customer.

Master Getting Found Using This Checklist:

What platforms or websites do my target consumers spend their time interacting with my SAF’s on?

__ Write them down on a piece of paper.

Not all platforms work for every business so take the time to make a list before marking a check on this line.

__ Have you done your competition analysis?

Write the notes of what you see and what you learned.

__ How can your brand be unique or different from the competition in your niche?

__ What can you learn from them to begin winning at your niche?

__ How can you develop you SAF’s in a way that the consumer will find them and benefit?

__ What platforms should you focus delivering your SAF’s on?

WRITE IT DOWN

__ How will the traffic find you?

WRITE IT DOWN

__ What pieces do you need in place to retarget the visitors that you have had to make them repeat visitors?

The Basics of Retargeting

There are two primary ways to retarget people:

1. Using Google Ads Network Remarketing Feature.

2. Using a software like Perfect Audience or AdRoll for Ads on Facebook and other websites.

Either option will require setting up an account and ads. Your ads will need to be working with a pixel tracking code that can track (or cookie) the users that have visited your site via ads or offers.

Once the user has come to your landing page a single time they are cookied with this code. The tracking pixel is what tells the ads network who to represent the same or similar offers to, based on the fact that they have shown interest but did not complete the buying process to the final step in the customer journey.

With Facebook’s new Custom Audience updates, facebook.com/ads/audience_insights, you can develop and build very targeted ad campaign audiences and begin sending traffic using Facebook Website Conversion Ads. Upon creating your Facebook Ad Campaign you will be given a pixel tracking code that can be installed on the page of your website that completes the desired action, most likely your thank you page.

You will need:

Your Landing Page: Any page of your website or blog designed for receiving traffic that can delivering your SAF and capture an email address.

Your Buy Page: A page one level deeper into your site that either makes the offer or gives them the SAF that you promised in your offer on the landing page.

Your Thank You Page: A simple thank you page that tells the user they have completed the offer process (hint: this is the ideal page to put your tracking code on).

Pixel Tracking Code: A piece of HTML that your ad network will provide you for your website.

An Auto Responder for Email List Building & Management: Any email list auto responder company that will integrate with the website that you own and do what you need it to do: Aweber, GetResponse, Infusionsoft, MailChimp, etc.

If the user makes it to the thank you page, then your ad network knows that they have completed the desired journey and will consider that a “conversion.”

If they fail to make it to the last step in the process then the ad network will automatically retarget your ads to the cookied users on your retargeting list.

Perfect Audience and AdRoll are the ones that would manage buying the ad spot and presenting the ads in the right places, to the right users, at the right times. To the users on your list when they are online (using any ad positions that are available in the ad networks).

Facebook and Google only make up a small percentage of all the ad positions available for purchase online. The retargeting software is what will determine where the ads should be shown, when, why, and to whom based on the tracking pixel and who has the active cookie that is on your list.

The one caveat to retargeting is that it does require your website to cookie quite a few visitors on your account list before retargeting ads can start to take place.

Now go and kick some butt, right?

Where do I begin? Read the Get Found Guide

Contact us if you want help growing your business.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also want to check out these others:

Social Media: The Catalyst for Website Traffic
Tips To Help You Decide How Much To Charge
4 Simple Ideas to Achieve Marketing Success
5 Social Media Mistakes That Will Get You Unfriended/Unfollowed
5 Tips to Get More Visitors to Your Website
7 Steps to Help Your Business “Get Found” on the Web
15 Website Mistakes You Should Avoid (Part 1)
Is There Still Gold in Cold Calling

This article is published by Will Sherwood | The Sherwood Group |Website Design | Graphic Design | Marketing Communications: The Sherwood Group has over 30 years of experience working with all sorts of companies, small and large. Our clients range from entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 firms, in nearly every business sector, from across the street to around the world (and yes, even Europe, China, and South America). Our goal is to create advertising,  graphic design, website design, and marketing communication that still looks fresh and relevant 10-15 years later. Our mission is to stir your imagination and leave your competition shaken and wondering,  Now what do we do?”  We are located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Do you need help growing your business? Click here to check out the social media marketing and website design packages from The Sherwood Group. We’ll help you capture new business and achieve your goals.

“Like” us and/or “Follow” us at these social media sites and we’ll return the favor:

LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

Please comment. We’d like to know if you found this article informative or helpful?