What I find most intriguing about SEO is its focus on the customer experience with the brand. Of particular interest, is the “reel ‘em in” strategy where organizations build website content based on what is attractive to the user. This is an important perspective to remember because often times organizations make decisions based on what they want the customer to know, not what the customer actually wants to know.
I found this rule helpful in analyzing my own organization’s website because it made me realize that our content was written for our own organizational interests opposed to that of the customer. We had built content based on what we wanted the customer to know about our product instead of trying to “reel ‘em in” with content they find valuable. Some organizations have found ways to link a good customer experience with increase in loyalty and sales (ROI). I find it especially difficult to do this when the goal is to raise awareness, which is hard to quantify. Quantifiable metrics like purchases would be easier to equate with the customer experience.
Following is a link to an interesting study on relating the customer experience to ROI. While it does not focus on SEO, it is interesting to see how customer experience is big for business, no matter what.
Strategically Communicating 
I feel like so many companies have yet to realize the full impact even a basic SEO strategy can have on their website effectiveness and, in turn, their overall business. Even such big news outlets and companies that dominate their market are not doing all of the things they could to really expand their brand/website awareness – I think people have focused so much on social media, they’ve missed this component.
By: niklaswarren on February 25, 2012
at 6:30 pm