When our clients make an inquiry for SEO services the first thing we want to know is who we are dealing with. We send them a set of questions, some completely unrelated to the service we provide at the first glance.

The questions are not always the same. If we get some of our answers by reviewing the site of the customer, the list is quite short. But this doesn’t happen often.

Many marketers make a huge mistake when they conceive their online presence and their online marketing strategy: they don’t provide enough information about themselves, they leave out exactly those elements that might help their visitors know them better and trust them more.

Without these elements all the SE rankings in the world do no real good. The traffic will increase, the ego of the one ranking on the first page in all the major search engines will get even higher, but the sales will stagnate. And the predictable will happen: the client will ask the SEO “why is my site not selling?”

Consider the following scenario: a new website, with an exclusive, excellent design, all standards compliant, with good page copy and enough quality content to rival with the best businesses in the field. Yet nothing really happens. Why?

Because, unless you were born under a lucky star, success doesn’t happen overnight. And if you build it, they will not come. You have to make people come and buy from you by enforcing your ideas and your brand into the WWW.

You might find “enforce” a strong way to put it, but this is what you need to do.

People like to buy from companies they know and they trust. So you have to make your brand known and you have to win the trust of your audience.

You will not do that by self praising your products and services. You will not win the trust of the people by cheating your way into their hearts. You will do it by providing quality.

When you launch your website you can use one press release distribution agency to signal your online presence (one PR service is enough. More would mean spamming). And you will focus your press release on the benefits for the people and less on how great your website is, what a great design it has and so on.

Is your website a press release worth? Yes, it matters to you, it’s your own creation after all and you have all the reasons in the world to be proud of your good work, but what does this website bring new in your industry and why should people visit it? To put it simple: why should anyone drive all the way to your store?

If you cannot find a good answer for this question, don’t be surprised that your website will not sell.

If you have that answer start getting the buzz. Hire a professional press release writer and ask for an SEO press release. Because SEO will help your press release rank well in the search results and it will help people find your news faster.

Hiring a writer is just the first step. After the press release is ready you’ll need to distribute it. Luckily online this will cost less than offline, and the reach will be broader too. The online PR newswires reach not only online news sites and search engines, but journalists, freelance writers and social networks too.

One of the best services of the kind is provided by www.prweb.com which reaches Google News, NBC News, Yahoo! News, MSN News and more.

If you aim for Associated Press the service you should employ is www.PRNewswire.com. They’ll even send your news to businessweek.com, US national and regional newspapers, TV stations and more.

Both PRWeb and PRNewswire are quite pricey, but worth every cent if you have what to sell. Because both are reputable services your press release will weight more in the balance of the ones who receive it. Only few journalists trust free newswires.

A cheaper service is provided by www.PRLeap.com. This is the ideal newswire for small businesses with lower budgets. The advantage is that PRLeap reaches Technorati too.

The main reason to write a press release is to make your product and brand known. The sales happens on your site and for that to happen you need to give to the visitors a reason to buy from you.

Create a comfortable atmosphere. Make people feel welcome on your site. Make them feel at ease. Add your picture or those of your team to give that sense of “personal business”, that special force that drives the Web 2.0.

Understand that modern business happens at a personal level now. Make your business personal and people will trust you more.

Avoid the “guru” approach. It is biased. People do not trust self-proclaimed gurus any more. Find other ways to impress them: be always ready to answer their questions, help them out when they are in need, don’t wait for them to ask for your help: offer it in advance. Be polite and focus all your efforts on delivering excellent service.

Make people talk about you. Roses have thorns, but the thorns don’t diminish their beauty. It could happen that someone will criticize you. Accept critique and try to solve the problem that led to a negative review.

Assume responsibility for what you do online. Stay informed with the latest news in your industry and try creating new products that keep up with the trends.

Each time you have a new product, do the press release dance again, but always remember to answer the question “why would anyone drive all the way to buy from you?”

Get involved in the online communities that are related to your business. They are your potential customers and business partners. Be active in the discussions and make a quality contribution to the groups you join.

Every witty comment you make in a blog, every quality advice you give in a forum, will win the hearts and admiration of the readers. They will click on your name (where you didn’t forget to link to your website) and go to see what else you have to offer. If they like what they see, they will come back for more and once they trust you, they will even buy from you and recommend you to other people too.

Reward them for being such faithful clients. Give away something free: a white paper, an ebook, software… anything you think they might enjoy, need or be interested in.

For all these steps there are enough “how to” tutorials to keep you busy for months. But all these are based on the same principle: understand your client’s needs and motivations, then learn what makes your client buy.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 12:08 pm and is filed under The Art of Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.