Bet on Your Website, Don’t Gamble

At the beginning of June, I found myself walking the brightly lit streets and timeless casinos of Las Vegas. It was my first time in Sin City, and though “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” I couldn’t help but take away a lesson about our clients and their websites.

While the game tables tend to be the most popular destinations in the many casinos, the slot machines are everywhere. Never having been a big gambler, I was amazed at the variety of slot machines. Beyond the silly themes of each, there were variations in denominations (as cheap as 1 cent), and even gameplay.

For me, the image of a slot machine is the classic pull-lever machine with three wheels and one “payline.” Today, some modern slots boast up to 100 paylines per spin, meaning there are more way to win every time you play.

It’s more expensive this way, because you’re betting on every line rather than just one, but from a purely statistical standpoint, it makes sense that your odds of winning something are increased.

A breakdown of the 50 paylines from Marvel Comics’ Iron Man 2… because yes, even our slot machines are licensed now.

The SEO services we offer our clients work in the same way.

In the old days, everyone used the same crappy 1-payline machine: Keyword Optimization. It worked, and sure you could still hit the jackpot, but only on that 1 payline right across the center.

Slot machine technology has advanced, and so have SEO tactics. You can still rely solely on keyword optimization, but you’re only going to be limiting yourself; it’s not as powerful as it used to be.

Today, you can increase your chances of winning with other services too: monthly content development, email marketing and conversion optimization, to name a few.

One place where SEO beats the slot machines: not only does each service offer another way to win, they can work in tandem and multiply your chances of winning overall.

Optimized content can help your site climb search engine result pages, but that’s not everything. Up the ante with the following internet marketing tactics:

• Content Marketing – Add monthly content development and solidify your position on the SERPs by staying fresh and relevant, as well as capturing new visitors via social shares and an expanded content footprint.
• Conversion Rate Optimization – Add conversion optimization into the mix and now your search engine-visible website is more likely to convert visitors into leads and customers.
• Email Marketing – Add email marketing to capture more information about visitors interested in you and increase return traffic by sending them updates straight to their inboxes, using the new content you’re posting.
• Retargeting – Retargeting displays online advertisements to users who have previously visited your site. Since an average of 2% of web visitors convert on the first visit to a site, retargeting allows business to pursue the other 98% who have show interest (by visiting) but not converted.
• Remarketing – Similar to retargeting, remarketing also focuses on visitors who bailed, but not before providing you with some information first. For example, if a registered user on your ecommerce site leaves items in the cart, you can contact them directly via email to encourage finalizing the purchase.

If you take a spin on a Vegas slot machine and nothing matches, you leave empty-handed. With SEO and internet marketing, every spin makes your slot machine better, more likely to hit the jackpot.

It’s not a very fast process (longer than a spin of the wheels) and it requires a great attention to detail, but that’s why we’re here. We dedicate a lot of time to each facet of a campaign to make sure the goals are focused and the pieces are aligned.

Stop gambling with your website—throwing something up, leaving it for months and hoping it works—and bet on it instead. It costs more, but when the result is a finely tuned website that works for you, it’s worth it.