Late last night i came across a tweet from Rand Fishkin informing people of his Searchlove deck (Rands cant buy me love deck) . I clicked through and worked my way through the deck ,as i got further and further in to the deck each slide made more sense than the last. This got me thinking of what i do on a daily basis, i work for a multi award winning, UK market leading search agency and on a daily basis i deal with some of the UK’s biggest household names. (trumpet well and truly blown, sorry)
But how much of the work i do on a daily basis is, exactly the kind of strategy i would like to be rolling out? I am not saying that the work i do is wrong and not effective in fact a hell of a lot of the things i do are fucking cool and i am surrounded by some of the most talented switched on people in the country! But, how much of the work we do is steered by commercial shackles? Sometimes there is a pressure that is put on you on a month by month and year on year basis, that sometimes makes decisions for you and in that you dont always implement the strategy you would like, because the thing you want to do is not guaranteed to work, nor do you completely know how long it will take to show a return.
So how do you speak to an existing client and tell them that you are going to spend their money implementing a strategy that steps outside the norm, and that does not follow the usual generic protocols or deliverables? I will tell you how!
As SEO’s we all love what we do, we have a passion that drives us to do the best we can for our clients and we want to see the best results possible, because we are all a little bit egotistical and at the end of the day when you can say i built that strategy, or i was on the team that put that together it makes us feel good and our clients get the best out of us.
I am going to bullet the things and highlight points i think should shape a strategy and then i will write a brief description down:
- Build brand, build brand by creating a character (hat tip to Roger), Build a brand by having a cool design, build a brand by having an innovative product, build a brand by giving a shit about your customers
- Searchers are not stupid, they may not be completely tech savvy but they know who pays to be listed and who is there out of reputation
- Paid ads are there because they have been paid for, natural listings are for the best part there because they deserve to be
- If you can make John come away from your site and say these guys are awesome, then it is more than likely he will tell Jeff that you are awesome. Then guess what he will 99% type your brand in to Google
- If you are going to do content, then do content! Research your subject, collect data, provide useful information create something that people will love
- You dont have to be the first, you just have to be the best. Dont be put off if it has been done before just make sure you do it better
- Engage with your customers, if they post something you like tell your customers about it or share it
- Manage your sentiment, do not be scared of bad reviews or negative feedback! Find out what the problem is and fix it, turn that persons frown upside down!
Why am i rambling on about this? Because this is natural search, or what natural search should be. Google love brands and think about it logically if you strive for your brand to be the best using the points above, do you not think Google and people will view you that way? Fundamentally you will drive traffic, increase click through rate, decrease bounce rate and make people want to be on your site, win, win, win and win.
