If you’re building customer-centric SEO, you need to focus on the details of your product. If you’re building client-centric SEO, you need to focus on you.
There is a lot of information out there about how to use SEO and other types of marketing to get customers. In Three Girls Media’s recent article about marketing tips from Netflix, for example, you learned how to make it easy to buy just one more thing and how to recommend and feature new products based on each customer’s specific interests.
However, these customer-centric marketing skills do not work as well when you are marketing to potential clients. Potential clients do not think in terms of impulse buys, and they do not respond to “just one more thing” marketing. If you’re running a business that revolves around clients, not customers — think cleaning services, tax advising, graphic design, life coaching, anything in that arena — you need to completely rethink your marketing strategy.
Today, we’re going to look at just one aspect of that marketing strategy: SEO.
How customer-centric and client-centric SEO differ
Think about a typical customer. What is that customer looking for when he or she begins a web search? Often, customers search for very specific details about a product. You’ve probably done these types of searches yourself; you might want to find “gluten-free pizza San Diego” or “curly hair shampoo BPA free.” Notice how these searches all describe specific details of the product you’re requesting.
Clients, on the other hand, are much more interested in the type of person you are than the type of product you offer. If you run a cleaning service, for example: a potential client knows there are probably 10-20 different cleaning services in his or her immediate area. What does the client want to know about these services? Specifically:
- Which service has the best reputation
- Which service is the easiest to work with
- Which service is run by someone who is flexible and willing to accommodate requests
In short: if you’re building customer-centric SEO, you need to focus on the details of your product.
If you’re building client-centric SEO, you need to focus on you.
Read your reviews
Try searching for a specific client-based business in your area. Chances are, review sites like Yelp feature prominently in the search results. This is always going to be a SEO issue for your business, and one you have to address right away.
Why can review sites be so problematic for client-centric business owners? Well, far more people leave bad reviews than leave good ones; if 99 people love your services, the one person that didn’t is going to be the one that leaves that negative Yelp review.
What’s worse than having negative reviews? Having no reviews at all. As one client at 29 Prime noted about the importance of reviews: “[29 Prime rep] Jessica was a big help on understanding why I am not receiving any calls. She stated I need to get reviews on my Google site.” Remember: clients are looking for information about you. If they can’t find any, they’ll move on to one of your business competitors.
Solve the review problem by encouraging your satisfied clients to leave good reviews. Start an email campaign asking clients to review your product. Entrepreneur site Inc has a great list of how to increase your number of good reviews online, including creating Facebook groups, adding a “give feedback” button, and even asking customers who wrote bad reviews to update them if a problem has been solved.
Always focus on the client
If you’re a client-centered business, you already know that your main job is providing excellent service to your clients. Simply put, you have to always think about what your client needs. It’s the same with SEO. You have to think about the types of web searches your client will be making, the types of reviews your client will be reading, and the type of information you need to provide to make sure your potential client is happy with your business.
This blog post was written by Christina Moore.
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