I have been involved in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) since before the days of Google (about 10 years now). Never before has there been as much opportunity to drive up your organic rankings to dominate your market and reduce your overhead expenses at the same time.
Most companies that dive into SEO do it haphazardly. They think that SEO is some kind of magic bullet that will somehow give them more sales or “save” their business by lowering advertising costs. While SEO can be that magic bullet, there is one crucial element that most aspiring SEOs (or SEO firms) do not hold in mind when designing their (or their client’s) website. That element is Market Research
Ninety five percent of a successful, organically ranked website (or any website) consists of deep market research. Market research is the vehicle that will allow you to understand what your market is doing, what it wants, what it cares about and, ultimately, how to dominate it.
Many people “think” that they know their market, this thinking is wrong more times than not. From all my years consulting online, I have found that most people don’t know their market because they have always assumed that they already knew it. They missed the ball from the very start and now they’re running to catch it.
The Internet is the greatest market research tool ever to grace planet Earth and for some reason over 90% of online businesses fail to research their market before designing the structure, layout and content of their website.
Worse, many fledgling companies fail to do market research before developing a product or service and then quickly find out that there is no market where they “assumed” there was.
The Internet IS a Crystal Ball
The Internet will reveal everything that you need to know to build a business and website that ranks in the top 10 for every keyword in any market you choose… I call this full market domination.
Keywords have a hierarchy of importance in every market online. Some keywords are typed in by tire kickers, others are typed in by educated shoppers and others are typed in by prospects that are ready to buy. As a business it should be important for you to know your “money keywords”, the keywords that people type in when they are further along in the buying cycle. Market research will reveal this to you.
Market research will also reveal how to design your website based on what people in your market find most appealing. It will also reveal how to sell your products or services in a way that is attractive to your target prospects.
You absolutely must know your market from top to bottom; from the top of the highest vertical to the bottom of the longest long tail. If you don’t know what a long tail is then I suggest that you read “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (by Chris Anderson)”.
If you don’t know your market then you have a long road ahead of you. However, if you stop for a moment and start implementing deep market research then you will know:
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What is selling in your market
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How to sell what is selling… to your prospects
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What your prospects interests are
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What drives your prospects to buy
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What keywords you need to target to attract prospects that are further along in the buying cycle
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What keywords you need to target to dominate your market
Do you want to play around or do you want to swallow your market whole?
If you follow a strict market research path by laying out specific questions and then seeking the answers (on the Internet) you will be able to develop an exact, step-by-step action plan that will lead you to full market domination. The Internet will tell you exactly what to do and how to do it.
Then you or your team will have an exact market domination strategy that can be followed piece-by-piece, day-by-day.
This action plan (or blueprint) will tell you exactly how to design your website, what keywords to target, what content to write & what keywords to include in your content in order to produce high organic rankings across all of your money keywords… This is true SEO.
You cannot do effective SEO without first developing this blueprint. If you have hired an SEO firm that skims over or ignores deep market research then you are wasting your money.
Over the coming weeks and months I will be sharing some market research fundamentals that are essential to a successful SEO campaign.
Until next time,
Charles Heflin – Professor
http://www.university2020.com
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