Back to my original thought - to everyone who has contributed to this thread:

Is it worth starting a discussion that explains how to keep visitors on your site once you rank well in Google, (Yahoo! and MSN)?

I think we have all agreed that there are many sites show that show up on page one of the SERPs, that immediately make you hit the back button, and in theory drive traffic to competitive sites.

This is a discussion I have with most of my clients - What can you do to add value to your users once they find your site?(Remeber I focus on Industrial commodities - all sites are basically the same - I am looking for a key differentiator) I listen to what their customers tell them and in some cases it may be CAD data download, in others it may be an interactive parametric catalog with pricing and availability.

Either way I always explain 3 things to my potential clients before contracts are ever written:

1. SEO is never guaranteed - beware of those who offer guaratees (for example read the Network Solutions guarantee http://www.networksolutions.com/web-site-promotion/search-engine-optimization.jsp) My 7 year old could meet this guarantee if he were offering the service - in other words it's about as useful as woodworm in a cripples crutch! ($5800 Ka-ching)
2. Check that your SEO company can show up in the SERPs, if they can position themselves, then they may be able to position your company. (you would be surprised that most companies do not run this test)
3. And most importantly, the The successful implementation of Online Marketing strategies depends in part on their cooperation to implement or allow access to implement the changes to their website in a timely manner.

We always have the discussion of Revenue Generation, Marketing Pull Sales Lead Dissemination, and Self-Service Models to reduce the Cost of Sales.

So this is what I originally intended this thread to be about - how to keep your prospects happy once they land on your site - I appreciate your input.

I'd agree with 1 and 3, but not 2 for a few reasons:

1) It contradicts #1 somewhat; "we can't offer a guarantee, but we do it ourselves".

2) The client might try different keywords and phrases that the SEO didn't target and/or end up on different datacenters.

3) It promotes the idea of rank checking to the client, which is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be avoided.

What I do instead is show clients my site stats. If they want to see what I'm found under, they can go there and analyze it 8 ways from Sunday themselves.

As far as what to do to keep prospects happy, I don't believe there's a universal answer to that question, nor should there be. It depends on the client base and what it is they're looking for. Some like pretty pictures, some like lots of text to read, some like videos, some like...well, whatever.

This is one of the big problems with web design in general...people try to pigeonhole concepts into situations they just won't work for.

Adam,

I appreciate the reply - your answers are thought provoking. It's exactly what I wanted to achieve when I started this thread.

Thanx

Originally Posted by yankees51

I think we have all agreed that there are many sites show that show up on page one of the SERPs, that immediately make you hit the back button, and in theory drive traffic to competitive sites.

This is a discussion I have with most of my clients - What can you do to add value to your users once they find your site?(Remeber I focus on Industrial commodities - all sites are basically the same - I am looking for a key differentiator) I listen to what their customers tell them and in some cases it may be CAD data download, in others it may be an interactive parametric catalog with pricing and availability.

Now this is the kind of discussion we need to have!

Newbie - is it worth talkupation points? Gimme some luvin' LOL

I just want to know what a parametric catalog is. I just noticed that, and I've never heard that term before.

A parametric ecatalog allows you to search for each attribute of a widget in any order you please - as an aside, the trick with any type of catalog is to make sure that you never return the dreaded "0 products found" that is so common on todays websites - I make sure that when a user searches for any product that the returning list of choices feeds the available choices so a product is always (and I mean always) found, based on end user input.

I just read this back and its not that clear - I could send you a link...

Originally Posted by yankees51

Newbie - is it worth talkupation points? Gimme some luvin' LOL

You must spread some talkupation around before giving it to yankees51 agqain.

Originally Posted by yankees51

SEO is never guaranteed - beware of those who offer guaratees (for example read the Network Solutions guarantee http://www.networksolutions.com/web-site-promotion/search-engine-optimization.jsp) My 7 year old could meet this guarantee if he were offering the service - in other words it's about as useful as woodworm in a cripples crutch! ($5800 Ka-ching)

C'mon newbie - this alone is GOLD

Actually, I agree. And it kind of gets to the heart of what me and Adam were talking about, so I like it.

But you have to give out TP to 10 people before you can give it to another person again. I kind of owe Adam and James and the two Dans and a lot of other people some rep, too, for the same reason.

Nice discussion going on in here

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

What I do instead is show clients my site stats. If they want to see what I'm found under, they can go there and analyze it 8 ways from Sunday themselves.

Now this is something worth showing to you clients. Some clients are more impressed by the actual numbers rather than SERP rankings.

I Agree with you MrCat and with Adam too! I do show my potential clients site stats of both my sites and in some cases where I have permission, sites of my other clients.

However, since most of my clents are looking for SEO it does not hurt to have them type a few key phrases in Google, just to put the icing on the cake.

And one last thing - did any of you read the NetSol guarantee that I linked to above. Maybe its just me, but any website producer in the World could meet those stipulations. I believe they are using their strong brand name to blind their customers with science, and the 20 out of 50 strategy in the 10 SE's they list would happen naturally any way. That's just 2 terms on the first page of 10 SE's in 10 months. WOW!

Here's my reasoning.

• IMHO most of my clients always give me their company name and trademarks when I ask for the keywords and phrases they want to show up for.
• In most cases they will show up naturally for those terms anyway
• I always advise of this situation to my potential clients and in most cases I have them focus more on generic and industry terms, however,
• I bet NetSol does not tell because that $5800 they charge is EASY MONEY!

Your thoughts....