The other day a group of colleagues were discussing SEO strategy with the owner in the software business. The individual was looking for ways to refine the website’s visibility in search engines.

As the discussion unfolded, it became apparent that the website did not have a significant SEO problem. The site ranks well for the primary keyword strategies, has thousands of pages designed to target long-tail keywords, and has been able to acquire links and visibility simply through age and word-of-mouth marketing.

The business owner was looking for any low hanging fruit missing from their SEO strategy for which they could gain a quick boost in traffic and sales. Was there an advanced SEO tactic that might not involve significant time or resources?

The reality is that there is very little low hanging fruit in the SEO landscape.

For new sites, the days of optimizing HTML titles and inputting Meta tags and ranking for competitive keywords are long gone. Established sites will benefit from keyword strategy and on-page optimization but it is the more challenging, ongoing work of acquiring quality links, generating content, and analyzing site metrics that will bring success from an SEO campaign over time.

What was interesting to pull from the conversation was that there may truly be forms of “low hanging fruit” for this online business and others in similar situations: websites performing well in search engines but looking for added value in their online marketing campaigns.

Here are four of the ideas that came out of the discussion.

Email Newsletters
I’ve rapidly become a believer in the value email marketing can have for a business. Instead of letting visitors leave with just your product, white paper, or download (or just leave), try getting them to sign up for a free newsletter. It does not have to be focused purely on sales communication; provide product updates, or free tips and tricks. Even periodic communication will bring people back that might turn into new and returning leads and customers.

Conversion Optimization
Evaluate, test, and refine landing pages. Solutions like Hiconversion and Google Website Optimizer allow site owners to test variables on landing pages in an effort to bring together the right mix of content for optimal conversion rates. Even if a commercial tool or software is not the way to go, consider testing variables manually and stay focused on the conversion metrics that can be found in every web analytics tool for evaluating the results.

Market Research
Learn more about your visitors and customers to find out what their interests and needs are, with your product and possibly the industry overall. Surveys and questionnaires are one mechanism but also leverage social media assets, building networks of customers, prospects and partners. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all offer ways to list and organize social networks and track conversations more specifically based on business goals as well.

Long-Tail Keyword Development
As indicated above, this site owner was already leveraging the long-tail but that is not always the case with many sites. If a website ranks well for competitive keywords, research two, three, and even four-word variations of keyword phrases that may drive additional organic search engine traffic through new content generation. In many cases, these long-tail search queries lead to even higher conversion rates since the searchers’ intent is usually more refined.

Final Thoughts
Site owners who have had success in their SEO strategies should consider leveraging that success into new online marketing initiatives. Many of these initiatives can get developed without exhaustive efforts in development or expense. So even if the quick and easy opportunities in SEO have already have been explored, there may be low hanging fruit in other areas of online marketing still to be discovered.

Kudos to Bob Hodgson, Mark Rafferty, and Scott Jangro for contributing to the discussion that led to this post.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Search Engine Optimization. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Bookmark and Share