Loading ...Most businesses are clear on their site’s purpose. If the business sells product, it’s fairly obvious that they’re retail. If the site is about providing information and perhaps obtaining revenue from ad hosting, it’s likely to be research. There are many cases, however, in which it is not so clear.
The boundaries between retail and research are often blurry on the net, particularly when a site is being operated as a business concern. If your site features lots of information, but your ultimate goal is to sell your textbook, is it retail? If your site is there to advertise your services, but you publish heaps of articles, is it research? The answer is to consider your pages separately, put them into categories, and go from there.
Each page is a separate case
People often forget that sites are not like books. The concept of a website, and the words we use to describe them, often leads to the conception that a site is tightly held together, its pages flowing on from each other in a logical order, bound together by the spine of the navigational system. In truth, a website is like several pieces of paper thrown all over a room, sometimes haphazardly, sometimes with purpose. People in the room can move from page to page as they wish, and their journey is made easier if paths are laid out for them. Each page, however, is a separate case.
This is the attitude you need to cultivate for successful SEO. Each of your site’s pages ultimately stands alone in the search engine listings, and you need to know which audience is going to be more receptive. You can talk to us at SEO Consult Australia about determining your target user groups. For each page, you need to ask anew: retail or research?
Why is it so important?
It’s important to know whether your pages serve a retail or research purpose because these two types attract two very different audiences. Although each group might be led, through careful persuasion, to become the other, initially you need to treat a retail group strictly as retail, and research as research.
Take a retail audience, for example. This kind of internet user has gone to the search engines with the specific goal of buying a product. They come to your site to check on the availability of the product, the prices, and your likelihood of being able to deliver. If you satisfy all of these requirements, they go to the transaction area.
Research audiences, on the other hand, are far more complicated. They are looking for information, chunks of which may be distributed throughout your site. If you’re running a business, your ultimate goal will still be to get them to commit to something, so you need to lay down a gentle path toward that transaction.
Optimise each page for its audience
If you’re running a business site, it’s vital to determine which of your pages apply to which audience then lay down the appropriate bait. Treat each page as a mini-site, and reconfigure your search engine optimisation plan appropriately.
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Tags: articles, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consult Australia
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