John Almberg, Identry.com -- February 2008
Imagine this scenario...
A collector sits down at his computer. He's got his Christmas bonus stacked in crisp new bills on one side of his keyboard, and on the other, the list of stamps that he's been dying to buy all year.
He fires up Google, reads the first stamp on his buy-list, and starts to search for it.
By happy coincidence, this stamp is in one of your major specialties. And you've got a beautiful copy in stock! (Bet you can hear the cash register ringing, already.)
But when the collector clicks the Google Search button, does your Website show up on the first page?
It doesn't! But a couple of your competitors do. And guess what? You're out! You just lost your chance to make that sale. The collector clicks on the websites he does find, compares what they have to offer, and makes the purchase.
A Huge Problem
Now, be honest. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Deep down, you know you are losing sales every day, for just this reason. Maybe you even made a New Year's resolution: "I will do something this year to improve my search engine marketing!" But you haven't done anything.
Why not? Because it's a daunting job.
Because every day you get email from people you don't know, telling you they can "GET YOU TO THE TOP OF SEARCH ENGINES!" But those offer smell fishy to you (and they should!)
Because even that "Search Engine Optimization for Nitwits" book you bought last year makes you wonder if your brain is giving out already... If a nitwit is supposed to understand all this search engine stuff, then you must really be far gone!
Because everyone talks about the hundreds or even thousands of keywords you should be optimizing for. Heck, you've got a stack of stamp that need to be graded and written up. Who's got the time?
Nevertheless, it must be done.
Why Search Engines are Important
I've spent quite a bit of time in this column talking about Search Engines, like Google, Yahoo!, and Live Search, but as Web user behavior has continued to evolve towards search, the problem has become more and more urgent.
Here's the bottom line: searchers are buyers, and the majority of your customers are now using search when they log onto the Web to buy. If your website doesn't show up on the first page of search results, then you don't even have the chance to make the sale (because most people never look at the second page of results, never mind the 34th.)
Business on the Web is going through the roof, but if your sales are flat or dwindling, it's probably because you're not showing up when collectors shop with search engines. Its as simple as that.
So you have a huge, insurmountable problem that you must solve. Not 'someday', but as soon as possible. What can you do?
How did the aliens build the Pyramids?
By putting one block on top of another. The secret to tackling any big job is to choose the smallest possible block of useful work, and do that. Once you've got the first block in place, the rest seems to get easier.
So what's the first step? You need to do three things to get started:
- make sure your website is being indexed by search engines
- choose your first 5 keywords
- measure how you're doing for those keywords on the top 10 search engines
After you've baselined your top 5 keywords, you would then optimize your site for each keyword, and then continue to measure your results and adjust your website until you showed up on the first page for all 5 keyword searches.
If you were a Zeppelin cover dealer, imagine how important it would be to show up on the first page just for the one keyword 'Zeppelin covers'. Now multiply that by 5 and you can see that even this small step could have a huge impact on your sales.
An Offer You Can't (or Shouldn't) Refuse
To help you keep your New Years resolution, I'll even help you do the first three steps. Why would I do this? To help, and because I really do think it's important.
I've even made it easy for you. Just our easy Top Five Keywords Form and enter your website address and top 5 keywords into the web form. (There's also help for choosing those 5 keywords.)
A few days later, you'll receive a report showing you how you rank on the top 10 search engines and some great ideas on how you can start to optimize your site for those keywords.
This offer is free, and probably for a limited time, so do it today! And have a great year SELLING STAMPS ON THE WEB.
