If your social marketing strategy is floundering, here is another solution to your problem
Want to acquire new customers? Rather than focus on promoting the business on social media sites, you could reach more people by focusing upon traditional SEO.
SEO is one of the most familiar tools for website owners, and is often used as a way to increase the prominence of the website. It is a vital practice for increasing the reputation of your brand, and it is often cited as one of the ways to bring new customers into a website. In fact, recent evidence suggests that SEO is the biggest source of new customer acquisition. It delivers better results than affiliate programs and marketplace targeting (through Amazon or eBay for example), according to a review of a number of different strategies used by website owners, including re-marketing, direct mail and social media websites.
Social media vs. SEO
Website owners have been tempted into becoming more active on social media sites, with the hope that this is the key to generating more content for their business. As more business websites promote themselves through social media, they may be wondering whether SEO will still be the best way to bring new customers into the site. Evidence suggests that more than 60% of businesses are intending to invest in Facebook and other social media marketing. However, an analysis of online transactions in 2012 revealed that only 1% originated directly from social media promotions. This means that all of the effort and investment is failing to generate any significant acquisition of new customers, and instead may even be reducing the amount of follow-through from casual visitors looking for information on their industry.
Why you need to keep up your SEO efforts
The figures demonstrate that, despite consumers reporting that they are discovering new brands through social media, Facebook and similar websites are not able to convert those discoveries into purchases or new customers. A study in the following year also showed that organic searches and SEO are the largest drivers of new customer acquisition. If you want to bring new customers to the website, you should consider investing in SEO, rather than trying to promote the product through social media. Of course, each business will be different, and some will find that they get slightly more from their social media sites than others, but regardless of the benefits, it is still not likely to get as good a response as basic SEO tactics that have been used in websites for many years.
How to get your SEO working to the best advantage
SEO is still the key to bringing in new customers and finding returning ones, but you can still do things to improve your keywords, including using long-tail keywords. This focuses upon phrases which might be used during search engine browsing, known as ‘conversational searches’. Evidence suggests that you are more likely to convert customers who find you using these long-tail keywords, and are also likely to be able to target customers more thoroughly than by using common phrases. If you need more assistance with your keywords, a good SEO consultant can help you to improve your search engine ranking using both traditional and more modern methods. Investing in good SEO will benefit you more than promoting your business through social media when it comes to customer acquisition, and may also do more for your company reputation than using Facebook or Twitter as your means of communicating with potential customers.
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