Optimise for Google or your customers?
Whether you are an existing business or a new business, you always have to choose between optimizing your site for search engines like Google or for your customers?
A lot of companies focus only on search engines, which might get them better rankings but compromises on their customer experience. With high speed internet, the customer attention span has reduced even further. Today’s customer wants all the information instantly to complete the objective of their search. It could be finding what services you offer or they might be interested in buying a product you sell.
Think about ways how you can improve your customer experience. If you are an e-commerce site, there are many ways you can improve your customer experience.
For example:
- Product Info: It is absolutely critical to include as much product info as available for your customers. Detailed descriptions, videos (where available), part numbers and past customer reviews of the product all help your customers make an informed decision.
- Clear pricing: Clear pricing with all taxation included & highlighted. This helps the customer know the actual price they are going to pay for the product.
- Currency: If you sell globally, always display the price in your customers’ local currency.
- Volume Discounts: If you offer bulk discounts, always display the volume needed and automatically apply the discounts in the cart.
- Sale price: Always display the full price, the discount, and the final sale price with all taxes clearly highlighted.
- Special Promotions: If you are running a special promotion using a code, always allow customers to check for current promotional codes. This builds trust and goodwill.
- Returns Policy: A clear and highlighted link to your returns policy builds confidence. Vague policies do more harm than good.
- Shipping Policy: Customers need to know how long delivery will take. This is a critical requirement.
- Insurance: Thousands of parcels go missing every day. If you offer shipping insurance, clearly mention it and encourage customers to consider it.
- Tracking: Let customers know if they can track their order and provide tracking numbers and links in confirmation emails.
- What if there is a problem? Provide customers a clear way to contact you in case of issues. This goes a long way in building trust.
There are some SEO requirements that make perfect sense like speed; on the other hand, there might be requirements that are good for SEO but compromise the user experience.
With any SEO, one thing to always keep in mind is that search engines are not your customer. Search engines are simply a medium that connects you with your customers. Always optimize your site for your customers.
In a nutshell, focus on your customers while keeping search engines in mind.
This is not an exhaustive list. Please let me know what you think might help your customers.