I do SEO. And occasionally when I'm talking to a business owner, they say, we want you to help us rank higher in Google, but we don't want to change the words on the page. And this can be a problem cause most of what we do in SEO.
Is change the words on the page. However, the conversation is a little more nuanced than some SEOs might make it out to be. Because of course, SEO.
Isn't everything. So I thought it'd be fun to kinda walk through the conversation that I tend to have with these business owners. The way I see it, there are three things you need to balance when considering the content on your website.
One is SEO, another is your brand. This is typically where business owners wanna push back. And the final one is your conversion rate.
Now, in a lot of ways, you don't have to pick between these three. Most best practices for website design are good for SEO, your brand, and conversion rate. But there are times where you have to make a compromise and you have to decide how much to prioritize one over the other.
So I'm gonna give you some hard and fast rules that I think every business should follow. And then I'll provide some guidelines for when you should prioritize one over the other. The first is it when someone visits an important Page on your website.
It needs to be immediately clear what this page is about and who it's for. This is important for SEO, for conversion rating, and even for your brand. So if this is the page for a product or service, the name of that product or service should be in the title of the page above the fold.
Surprising to me how often brands get this wrong. It's typically because they're so focused on conveying a specific message or eliciting a specific emotion. And there's nothing wrong with that, but if the visitor can't tell what you're selling, then it's all wasted.
Moving on, let's talk about what's most important in each of these three areas. For SEO, what really matters is that you're using the same terms that people are searching for when they're looking for whatever this page is about. So this is the page for one of your services.
Make sure you're using the term that people actually search for when they're looking for that service. Not the term that you use internally, not the technically correct term. Whatever people tend to search for in Google, that term needs to be in your H1 or the title of your page, as well as the meta title and if you can, the first sentence of text.
In terms of your brand, what matters most is that you're clearly distinguishing yourself from your competitors. Make it very easy for visitors to see who you're For and who you're not for and for your ideal customer. Make it really clear why you're the best choice for them and for conversion rate.
Make it as easy as possible for them to take the next step towards working with you. So whether that's calling you, filling out a form, signing up for a demo, purchasing a product, make it really easy for them to find that button. You'd be surprised how many people will give up after a few seconds of searching and go straight to your competitor.
Outside of those main rules, it really is a balancing act determining how much you want to prioritize SEO, branding, and conversion rate. In general though, the bigger your company, the more you want to prioritize brand, and the more commoditized your industry is, the more you want to prioritize SEO. And conversion rate.
