When you look at your search engine traffic in the form of a pie chart, it comes from three main places. First, there’s those who find your website through social media, or some other link to your website. Predictably, this is called referral traffic.
If your site is well designed, with strong copy, maybe they’ll like what they see and return. Maybe you’ll get a strong word of mouth referral online. The power of customers’ words on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other online platforms can resonate, and result in good business. This is why it’s important to take great care in your presence on all of these platforms.
The reality is that on a whole, referral traffic can be a fickle segment of the pie chart. For every legitimate customer who finds your social media accounts through a mutual friend, there’s flighty traffic. Maybe someone clicked a link not knowing what to expect. Maybe they don’t need your services, or don’t want to engage. Some may convert if you make it easy, but some will leave no matter how easy you make it. It’s OK.
There’s also direct traffic. These are the folks who are familiar with you some way, and typed your web address in to get where they are headed. Maybe they’ve met you in person, or at least been to your site in the past. Either way, they knew what they were looking for, and exactly where to find it.
Then there’s the search traffic. This is a segment of your website traffic that you want to treat right. They’re the people who found your site by entering a search term into Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Maybe they are looking for restaurants in Chicago, or gyms in Arizona, or nearby movie theaters. The possibilities are endless, but that’s really the whole point.
The possibilities are endless, and they found you. So treat them right. Here are some suggestions to tailor the experience to them:
- Make sure the search is related. (If they found you by typing “Chicago restaurants,” give them your Chicago address) Then give them the rundown on your restaurant.
- No spelling or grammar errors on the page.
- Provide quality content that is related to the search terms that they provided.
- Make your call to action clear.
- Lists, bullet points, subheads and smaller paragraphs break up the content and make things more visually appealing.
Searchers Are Your Best Shot At New Business
Think about it. The mere act of searching for your services shows that they are at least doing some motivated research. This makes them a higher priority than those who just found your website by accident. This is why it’s so important to provide website content based around your keywords, and optimize your content.
Make sure new visitors know why they are there.
Matt Brennan is a Chicago-area marketing writer and copy editor. He is also the author of Write Right-Sell Now.
