The #1 SEO Mistake Business Owners Make and How to Fix It

The #1 SEO Mistake Business Owners Make and How to Fix It

As a professional marketer who helps companies optimize their sites for SEO (organic traffic) and for conversions (visitors taking action), there’s one main SEO mistake I see companies make consistently.

It’s just one little problem with SEO, but it costs businesses thousands of dollars in lost revenue every single year.

The DIY culture in entrepreneurship is a catch 22. The high points? Anyone can build a beautiful site with relatively few resources. Being able to DIY your website saves business owners having to pay a website developer. The barriers to entry have never been lower for entrepreneurship. Someone could essentially open a business in a weekend if they wanted to. That’s the great news.

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The flip side of the DIY culture is missing out on building effective systems, like a website that effectively guides visitors through the path to become paying customers. So many business owners I know aren’t seeing sales conversions from their website and they have no idea why, but that’s what I’m going to share with you in this article.

I’ll let you in on why visitors aren’t converting, how to change your website so they do. Plus, I’ll add my favorite tips that integrate SEO into the larger picture of your marketing plan.

With my background in SEO, I’ve created hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue for my SEO clients. We know there are over 200 components of the Google algorithm, but you don’t need to know all of them to be successful.

Knowing a just handful of best practices, like submitting your sitemap, using optimized keywords, and internal linking strategies can mean the difference between few or no sales and a website that sells for you.

Starting an Online Business

Picture this: I had officially quit my job and was gleefully unemployed. I left a toxic corporate culture that shook me to my core. So, I took the leap to start a small business.

I was determined to make my new business become my full-time job replacement. Sitting in my small little apartment, I dove straight into creating a website as the first step in starting my business (Ugh – no judgement, please. I thought that’s what you were supposed to do first. Since then, I learned that’s totally not the case and detailed the exact process in How to Start a Business: A Step-by-Step Guide for Female Entrepreneurs.)

As I scoured the Internet poring over competitors’ sites, I noticed blogs were all the rage.

So, I added a blog to my new website and thought I was doing it right.

I saw they had links and big paragraphs with advice, so I followed suit.

As a new entrepreneur, I was oblivious to website strategy and, needless to say, I wasted a whole lot of time creating content with sporadic results.

Nine years since my early days as an entrepreneur, SEO is my jam.

How did I go from blog newbie to creating hundreds of thousands of dollars in added revenue for clients through SEO strategy?  I’m going to teach you the #1 SEO mistake I see entrepreneurs make and how to fix it to grow your website traffic and turn more leads into paying customers.

First, let’s talk about what SEO actually is.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization and it’s the process of crafting your website so search engines can understand what kind of searcher is a good fit to recommend your site to.

When search engines know what your site is about, they can rank it in the search engine results for relevant searches. In essence, it’s an excellent way for business owners to grow website traffic with relevant leads who are a good fit to consume your content, buy from you, and become raving fans.

Now that you know why SEO is so important for business owners (i.e. it sends ideal customers straight to your doorstep), let’s talk about exactly where business owners miss the mark when it comes to SEO.

Best On-Page SEO Tips

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Common SEO Mistake

Once I jumped on an SEO Discovery Call with an event planner named Kandace out of the Washington, DC area. I sensed Kandace was a go-getter who really knew her stuff about business, and she was fairly well-informed about how to gain customers online from a marketing perspective.

She mentioned that she had a plan for SEO, she wanted to run it by me, and that she just needed help executing it. 

Before our call, I did what I do with every prospective SEO client: I reviewed her online presence, including her website, social media presence, and what her “funnel” looked like for guiding leads to become paying customers.

I noticed there was a huge gap from the moment visitors found her website to actually becoming a customer of hers.

How to Conduct SEO Research 

It’s important to understand how I found this gap because it’s the same mistake most entrepreneurs make. Before I jump on a call with a potential client, I want to know every nitty gritty detail about their website. I check to see:

·      What website platform they use,

·      How much written copy is included on their website,

·      Whether they have appropriately placed calls to action,

·      What conversion goals they’re trying to meet, and

·      How they use visual elements to encourage visitors to engage with the content.

That’s what I did with Kandace. I evaluated her website to see how she funnels her visitors through the buying process. I looked to see how she leverages keywords (or if she’s done any keyword research at all). I checked out her blog strategy for the same things too.

 Here’s the takeaway: a site that’s set up well to convert will lead the visitor through a journey into a sale. That’s the “conversion” part of a marketing strategy. Kandace’s website didn’t do this, and it’s also the mistake I see so many other entrepreneurs make.

The #1 SEO Mistake Small Business Owners Make

Kandace isn’t the only one whose site leverages SEO strategy but misses the mark on conversion strategy. A site that lacks conversion strategy is the #1 mistake I see small business owners make all the time, especially business owners who DIY their own website and marketing.

So, how do you actually get visitors to convert? You tell them where to go next in an intentional way through The Buying Cycle. That’s where conversion rate optimization comes in.

What is Conversion Rate Optimization?

Conversion rate optimization is the strategy behind getting more people to take a desired action. It’s SEO’s bestie because SEO does the hard work to drive qualified leads to a site, while conversion rate optimization closes the loop by drawing the visitor deeper into a relationship with the company.

The Importance of Conversion Rate Optimization

As you can see, SEO is only half of a very important two-part strategy for growing and converting traffic online. In order to earn a ROI (return on investment) from SEO, you must create a website focused around conversion that intentionally guides leads to become paying customers. That’s the secret behind a successful marketing strategy.

If SEO helps drive qualified leads to your site, conversion strategy guides them intentionally to become paying customers.

What Does a Website Without CRO Strategy Look Like?

A site without conversion strategy looks like:

• Few or no calls to action leading to the next phase in The Buying Cycle from entering the site to the converting end point,

• The lack of internal links to give Google context about how website pages are related,

• No strategy moving customers forward into a sale and never backward into a non-converting space,

• Product or service descriptions that are too short and lack adequate details to help a customer decide to buy, and

• No proof of concept positioned where the customer needs it to help mitigate the risk of trying something new

…to name a few. Without an intentional conversion strategy, you might drive lots of qualified leads to your website, but they won’t successfully journey into an intended conversion, like opting into your email list, completing a form, or actually making a transaction.

How are SEO and conversion related?

For SEO to get results, a website has to be primed to convert visitors intentionally. Otherwise, paying for SEO is pretty useless.

Companies whose digital presence isn't set up to funnel customers through the buying process aren't going to see a big return on investment (ROI) from SEO.

Here's why: If your digital presence doesn't meet potential customers where they are in the buying process and present value along the journey into a conversion, conversion is going to be low or nonexistent.

If you're asking yourself how much you're losing because your digital presence is not set up to convert leads into followers, you’re in the right spot.

Now let’s talk about a what’s a realistic expectation for how long it takes SEO and CRO strategies to work.

How Long Does It Take for SEO to Work?

SEO and CRO strategy can take up to 90-days to see results. But it can also take simply weeks or even days. Let’s talk about why…

SEO and CRO are an investment of time and money. That means, when you pay an expert to optimize your site, you should expect to see results that not only cover the cost of the investment, but yield dividends in revenue in the future. I personally love SEO because unlike the painfully short half-life of a social media post, SEO doesn’t stop working. In fact, it only builds upon itself repeatedly. I call this, “the snowball effect” of SEO.

That means SEO is a long-term strategy that compounds over time. Often, I hear clients see an uptick in conversion before I even complete a project with them.  

For example, I optimized a website for a wedding event venue in Pensacola, Florida. Our conversion goal for was to increase contact form submissions so their team could jump on a call with prospective brides to book their venue. The owners of the company emailed me before they even paid the final invoice to say they were seeing an influx of form completions.

But the goodness doesn’t stop there. Now that my wedding venue client has a firm optimized foundation for their site, Google will see positive signals from visitor behavior and recommend the site and more and more searches. Sure, the company paid about $4400 for the service, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve gained 10X that in new customers in the last six months alone. That’s how powerful SEO is. There is an ROI to good SEO.

However, the reality is that results don’t always come this quickly. SEO can take time to deliver results - up to 90-days in my experience. For example, I decided to prioritize content marketing as a goal for one of my companies. Over the next six weeks, I saw an influx of impressions in the Google search results, with conversions taking a bit more time.
How quickly SEO works for a website depends on many factors, including how saturated the site’s content topic and industry are, what platform the site was built on, and how much new content is added on a consistent basis.

SEO requires someone who understands consumer habits (marketing) AND the technical side of optimizing (SEO). It requires someone who knows what SEO metrics, data, and analytics with SEO tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Key Search, and Moz and how to use data-driven decision making to get results.

On top of that, it takes a great deal of time to evaluate the many factors that go into a site's SEO (remember, there are over 200 components that feed into the Google algorithm!) and implement the handful that really matter throughout a website. Like I said, SEO is not a quick fix.

SEO Tips for Beginners

Consider What Your Audience is Already Searching for, Then Create Content About It

All too often, I see business owners create content backward. They start with a list of topics they’re knowledgeable about and begin writing content. Instead, they should figure out what their ideal client is already searching for and create content as a bridge to help the potential client create transformation. To do this, small business owners must know their ideal client well enough to successfully create content that speaks to their actual pain. 

Give Away Lots of Value

Give away knowledge generously. The only way your ideal client will know you’re a good fit for them is to be generous with your content. Sure, you’ll attract an audience of DIY’ers, but those aren’t your ideal clients. Your ideal clients have already decided they need a guide to accomplish the transformation. When you educate generously, you position yourself as a perfect fit to help them succeed.  

Educate, Entertain, and Inform via Content People Use Most

Creating content that educates, entertains, and informs your clients has the added benefit of appealing to search engines who want to know that your content answers a searcher’s query completely. The better you deliver complete results through website content, the more likely you are to gain qualified leads. Then, you can implement conversion strategy on your website with these 4 Effective Ways to Increase Conversion on Your Website.

Repurpose Content

When you set out to create high quality content with intentional research, you’ve set yourself up well to speak across multiple platforms on a topic you know your audience will love. The research you do up front isn’t just purposeful for blog posts. That same high quality content can be used in lots of different ways across your marketing channels.

For example, you could write a blog and turn it into a three-part email series. Or, record a how-to YouTube video and embed it as a mini course on your website. Take an excerpt for social media and post those over on your Google Business Profile. Jump on a live video (then put that live video back into the blog because Google LOVES video because, well, the data shows that people love video) and post it in a tutorials blog post.

There are lots of ways to maximize content, and in How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy that Makes Your Business Stand Out, I teach you how to make the most of every minute you invest in your marketing strategy. 

Nurture Customers Who Are Not Yet Ready to Buy

Now you know how to guide qualified leads into a conversion, but what about customers who aren’t yet ready to buy? That’s an important question considering over 90% of people who come to your site will not yet be ready to buy. That’s where nurturing the relationship comes in handy. The best way to do it? An active email list.

One of the best kept secrets in marketing is that it's easiest and least expensive to sell to customers who have already bought from you. Cycle those customers back through your website with repeat touch points presented by high quality email content.

A significant portion of your marketing efforts should be budgeted toward retention because it will drive down marketing costs and create efficiencies in your marketing strategy that lead to profitability.

How to do this? Make sure existing customers are added to your email list and show up in their inbox consistently. This way, you can re-market to 1) customers you fought so hard to acquire in the first place and 2) keep fostering the relationship by delivering value.

If you aren't leveraging email as a small business owner, you're leaving money on the table. It’s one of the best ways you can keep qualified website visitors coming back to your website over and over, which will signal to search engines that you have an engaged fanbase.

Creating a strong multichannel marketing program in your business is going to be the best route for 1) setting the stage to drive organic traffic, 2) KEEPING valuable customers, and 3) expanding your digital presence online. 

Give ‘The Compounding Effect’ Time

Remember, marketing efforts compound over time. I've seen a blog post a client wrote five years ago continue to be the #1 driver of new traffic (new customers!) to their site. How cool is that? The time you invest in good quality, optimized content will pay dividends.

Blog posts have staying power, and once you create them, you can leverage them across all marketing channels (for example, use an excerpt for your social media content, drive traffic to your website through emails, post to Google My Business listing, etc.).

Conclusion to The #1 SEO Mistake Business Owners Make and How to Fix It

The #1 SEO mistake I see small business owners make is investing resources to drive qualified traffic to their site, but then failing to intentionally lead visitors through the website according to The Buying Cycle and into a conversion. Now you know why SEO is only half of the two-part strategy.

Take action to 1) write about topics your audience is already searching for, 2) give away lots of value, 3) focus on educating, entertaining, and informing 4) across a well-curated marketing mix, 5) nurture leads who aren’t yet ready to buy, and 6) give the compounding effect time to work.

You’ve got this! I can’t wait to hear about how you use this information to increase your conversion rate and profitability!

Have questions or tips to share on the topic? Use the comments below!

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About Founding Females®

The mission of Founding Females® is to help build a better future for female entrepreneurs through education, encouragement, and shared wisdom. We create safe spaces for women to share business challenges and receive peer support. 

In addition, Founding Females offers an online female business mastermind, a how-to guidebook for female entrepreneurs called Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, and in-person events, like an annual women’s business conference and local Founding Females Meet Ups.

Founding Females® was founded by small business educator, Francie Hinrichsen. She believes anyone with a dream on their heart can pull up a seat to change the world through entrepreneurship. Click to learn more about working with Francie.