5 minute read
SALES AND MARKETING
Where do prospects land?
Here’s how to ensure that people searching for your services find you online.
BY PAUL WATKINS
Do you know what the people you want to connect with are searching for?
Google and YouTube are the two most-used search engines (yes, YouTube is a search engine).
And once you have researched this, it is what happens next where you can make gains.
Think of it this way. Your client base can be segmented into clusters, cohorts, types or groups, whatever you prefer to call them.
Each cohort will have a specific reason for contacting you. For example, you may have groups of first-home buyers, those aged 45-plus wanting to tradeup, others who are looking to renovate, business loan-seekers, some wanting to consolidate debt, and so on.
Perhaps you have up to six or eight distinct groups. The number is not the issue.
The challenge is offering a solution to their “problem”. If I am looking to renovate, I might search for “mortgages for renovations (then the name of my city)”.
Google entries that have the right headlines that meet this search will show up first.
Similarly, I might search for “mortgages for first-home buyers” or “how do I buy my first home?” or “help buying my first home”.
There will be a range of ways to search for such information, which is the first step.
When they search and then click on the desired headline that shows up, where does this take them?
With luck, it takes them to a dedicated page on your website. I had a conversation recently about this with an adviser. Most website hosts will let you have up to 100 pages, some, even more, depending on your host provider plan.
While you have your main pages – Home, Services, Contact and so on, the others are often called “landing pages”, as they are the pages you land on once you click a link.
Whenever you run an online ad, be it on social media, LinkedIn or Google, make sure it is linked to a relevant page on your site.
Match the headlines on each page to those that people are searching for.
I’ll keep going with the example of first-home buyers to illustrate my point.
Keyword research showed that the five most popular search phrases for first-home buyers (at the time of writing, so constantly check), were “First-home buyer grant”; “Kainga Ora first-home loan”; “Easiest bank to get a home loan”; and two involving named trading banks.
Now if one of your pages has the headline, “First-home buyer grants” then you will show up higher in the search rankings.
And logically the page on your website that has that headline contains lots of useful text and/or videos about home loan grants or options.
Be careful here not to use jargon, go with the words people search for.
Equally, for each market segment you want, research what is being searched and make a page or a blog post with that headline and relevant content.
Now you know what you need to do, this is how to do it.
I won’t get into search jargon but talk to a search engine optimisation (SEO) expert, who will explain meta titles and meta descriptions, which are how Google matches searches to pages. But for now, these are the basics steps.
First, put yourself in the role of a prospect and search on Google. Choose a browser you do not currently use, such as Opera or Edge so your own browser
history doesn’t cloud the results.
Search for words and phrases that prospects in each of your chosen target groups might search for.
See how Google suggests phrases in the drop-down as you type. This is an indication of what is being searched for.
You can also invest in a keyword tool – there are lots of options (Google it) and they are not expensive.
Now write down 20 or so phrases that give the results in the search of competitors or lenders. If they are search results that you would love to be among, then you are on the right path with your choice of search phrases.
These phrases are now your headlines for relevant landing pages on your website and blog posts.
Now, under each of these desired search phrases, write five ideas for blog entries.
These would be variations on the theme of the phrase. For example, if one of your search phrases is “First-home buyer grant” then five topics under that one could be, “Financial help for your first home”; “Using KiwiSaver to get your first home”; “Government grants for first-home buyers”; “Ways to get the 5% deposit for your first home,” and “Why using a broker is way less stressful than going direct to a bank for your first-home loan”.
If you have 20 search phrases that bring up competitors’ pages, then five topics in each of the 20 themes mean you now have 100 blog entries.
A blog post can be a video and transcribed text or just text that meets these topics. And one or two solid paragraphs are a good length.
So now when prospects search for those phrases, your relevant website page and/or blog post will appear and when clicked on will take a person to a page that specifically addresses their problem.
You will probably have gathered by now that while this is not hard, it is time-consuming. There are three ways to do this in practice, the first being to do it yourself in a nominated regular, non-negotiable timeslot, for example, Friday mornings between 8:00 am and 10:30 am.
The second is to get an agency to do it for you.
There are quite a few out there and their charges vary a lot, so interview two or three before committing.
The third option is to allocate the task to a competent team member, who is willing the learn the required skills.
Taking out ads on Google will raise your search rankings (at a cost), but before you pursue this, make sure that these ads land on the right pages.
As mentioned already, most web hosting companies allow you to host up to 100 pages at no extra charge, so use them. Make each one specific to the information prospects are seeking.
If I want to finance renovations, I don’t care that you can do “mortgages for all types of client, including investment properties, renovations, commercial and first-home buyers” (the real headline on one broker’s webpage).
I only want to know that you have skills in financing renovations.
There is a famous saying; “If you’re selling to everyone, you’re selling to no one” – remember this when you write the text for your website pages and blob entries. ✚
Paul Watkins is a marketing adviser to the financial services industry.
