Jennifer Laycock

Jennifer Laycock

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It's exciting to see small businesses take off running with search engine optimization when they learn about the marketing potential of a well optimized site. However, so many businesses run ahead of their site by optimizing their code without optimizing the user experience. What they fail to realize is that sending new (and even targeted) traffic to a site that isn't user friendly does drive more sales, it drives more failed conversions.

Seth Godin noted this week:

One of the luxuries of being in a low-cost business or in having access to capital is that you can scale quickly. You can go from one salesperson to a hundred, one store to twenty, no franchises to a thousand.

In our rush to scale, sometimes we forget something essential: if it doesn't work when you've got one, it's extremely unlikely to work when you have dozens.

This is true for search marketing as well.

While it's essential that you undertake keyword research, content optimization and link building, it's even more essential that you first make sure your site is delivering a solid user experience. If 85% of your visitors abandon their shopping carts, a top ten Google ranking isn't going to improve your sales by that much.

Before you undertake an SEO upgrade, take an honest look at your site and your conversion rate. Chances are strong that you might find some other areas of your site that need to be optimized first.

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Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, an educational web site aimed at translating the search marketing world into something that small business owners can understand. Jennifer specializes in common sense search engine marketing, viral marketing and customer outreach via social media and blogs. A former search marketing consultant and in-house trainer, Jennifer’s clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings and Highlights for Children. Her primary clients now are a little girl named Elnora and a little boy named Emmitt.