Apr 15th, 2006
Don’t let them find you - maximize your visibility
You don’t need to sell anything online to do e-business. The concept of doing business online is the same as offline. In the real world, doing business is much more than « selling » or « dealing », I guess you already know that. As a matter of fact, when you receive calls from prospective clients, when you give out some pamphlets or when you get an article in a magazine… you do business. In all these cases you get in touch with clients in some ways. Each time you show a piece of what your company is. Hopefully, the number of occasions to show people who you are would be 10, 50 or 100 times more than what you’re able to do with the ressources you have.
I have a pretty good news for you. Millions of people are searching for you (or your competitor) on the Internet. « Yeah but Matt, we do have a website and you’re wrong when you say that there are millions of people looking for us, we don’t get that much visitors ». Well, that’s exactly why I’m saying that I got a good news for you. I’m sure there are a lot of people, you say that I’m wrong, let me proove you that I’m right.
Let me use a simple example. In many aiports there are car rental companies. Each of them have an office where they meet customers who already reserved a car by phone/internet/travel agency. They also try to rent cars to the travellers arriving at the aiport. These companies rent a local in the airport and each of them try to get the best location. Sure they want to have a nice office near the parking lot but what counts the most is to be on the travellers way to the exit. The travellers should absolutely see their office while finding their way out of the aiport. Exactly like fastfood restaurants, they’re always on your way. You want to be seen? Be on your customer’s way. Don’t let them find you. Try to maximize your visibility.
On the web, it’s exactly the same pattern. Even if you have a website, it doesn’t mean that it’s strategycally located. You can give your website address to some people via pamphlets, business cards, tourism guides, etc., but you should never forget « the others » you want to bring in. Be in their « internet search path ». On the Internet, there are a lot of ways for people to search for companies like yours. You should guess and define what your potential customers are looking for so that you can optimize your visibilty on search engines, indexes, etc.
Here’s a 4 steps process to follow to grow your visibility in search engines :
1. Define a list of 20 keywords/key phrases that most represent what you are and what you want « to sell ».
2. Evaluate if these keywords bring customers to your website.
3. Optimize your website to grow your numbers.
4. Go back to step 1.
You can also use other tricks to grow your visibility. Reviews websites, travel forum, listing of « things to do, to see », top 10, travel websites. There are a lot of people that could be interested by your company, it’s up to you to get known… or not.
Just remember that you shouldn’t let prospective customers find you… be proactive!