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Beyond SEO: Positioning Your Company 

Every business wants to be found, but it takes more than just SEO to be successful. You might be surprised how many businesses come to us for marketing help, but fail to do five basic fundamental essentials:

1. DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT & PICK A NEED TO FILL - Does the world need another YouTube? If you'd like to make a user-friendly video forum that's fine, but be sure you have something original about it. Think about who could use it because that comes in handy for step two. 

2. KNOW YOUR TARGET MARKET - Everyone in business has someone they sell their products to, but often clients say 'everyone on earth are my customers'. The truth is any promotion you do needs to be targeted to a particular group. A great example is to look at cola producers. You'll find ads geared to several 'generations' at any given time, but each ad targets a particular group. What groups buy your products and how would you like to target them? Maybe you do appeal to everyone, but you need to put promotions forward for each one, not a general blanket promotion. 

3. IT'S ABOUT THE CUSTOMER STUPID - Like the KISS method, there's another fact to consider when positioning your company. You can have a list of credentials that circle the earth twice but all the customer wants to know is 'What's in it for me?' and 'How can this product/service improve my life?’ It doesn't matter if you're selling homes, cat food or candy bars. The focus is on how you'll make their life better, not how wonderful you are. 

4. SALES IS AN EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE - You need to appeal to your customers on an emotional level. I often explain what I mean in these terms: Women buy perfume to smell nice (fact). Women buy a particular perfume because it makes them FEEL beautiful, sexy, etc. (emotion). If you want to close a deal, you need to appeal to people's emotional factors. 

5. ONCE YOU'VE GOT 'EM, KEEP 'EM - Once you get people to your site find ways to keep them there - be it free reports, newsletters, sign up for online coupons, etc. Continue to send them things that will keep you in the forefront of their mind. That doesn't mean being annoying or spamming your customers. It means providing information to them on a regular basis that keeps them coming back to your site. What’s the bottom line? Show your prospects you’re an expert and they'll return to you for products or services. 

So how do you position your company for the most success? Again, here are areas to consider:

1. Find a Common Need 
2. Find your Market 
3. Demonstrate Your Expertise and How it Helps the Client 
4. Stay in Touch 

SEO and SEM are great marketing tools, but you need to take things a step further. Getting people to your site doesn't mean you'll get the sale and that's the bottom line. In order to position your company you need to show your buyers that you provide more than just keywords. You have products or services that will benefit THEM. 

About the Author: Winters Productions (www.wintersproductions.com) offers affordable copywriting and design services for small to large business.