Local SEO: You Better Engage the Visitor

Written by Will on May 22nd, 2008

As more and more people go online to look for local deals, check out products online before buying locally, etc, it is becoming more and more imperative that your website gives more than just information about your products.  Getting them to your website is a great first step.  More traffic means more face-time with potential customers.  More face-time means better branding. It’s all good, but it isn’t all paying the bills.

In order to pay the bills, you need conversions. 1000 people to your website doesn’t guarantee 100 or even 10 sales.  Once they see your products, are they engaged to find out more?  No?  Why not?

Every single product page on your website should have some sort of ‘find out more’ button.

  • Click here to find out more about our blue widget
  • Want more info? We’re glad to help
  • Need a blue widget for your home? Let us find you the right one

Something needs to encourage them to click.  And once they click, they provide their email, phone or other way of contacting them.  Now you’ve turned that casual visitor into a warm lead – and you’ve got a way to communicate with the customer, thus fortifying your position as the subject matter expert of blue widgets (assuming you really know what you’re talking about).

Engage the visitor with a button on each product page.  Try to make the subsequent form that they fill out as short as possible, and with a little fancy coding you can even put the name of the item in the form for them.  Make it easy, thank them once they submit the form, and make sure you get back with them in a decent amount of time.

Personally I dump all of these inquiries to a database where I can keep track of them, and I also note down their referrer if its available.  I email myself (web designer) and the store owner a copy of the inquiry so they can follow up quickly.  Lastly, I send a thank you email, customized with the product name, to the potential customer.  Another opportunity to get my clients brand in front of them.

What are you doing with the visitors to your site?  Don’t just sit back and expect them to call.  Engage them, get some info from them, and provide outstanding customer service.  Even if they don’t end up buying from you, you still had the opportunity to make more of an impression on them, and that’s worth a lot.

Related posts:

  1. Verifying Local Leads
  2. Promote Local
 

2 Comments so far ↓

  1. Doug says:

    This is a new and growing area of my site. I believe it is an essential feature and does not require the customer to:

    1 list the product that they are interested in since each contact page is dedicated to that product and shows up in your email as such.
    2 Navigate away from the page of interest to find a way to contact you.
    3 During the navigation loose their place of interest.

  2. A View SEo says:

    Local is where it is at for us. We like empowering the local small business owner to leverage the internet to grow there business.

    Found you on Sphinn

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