SEO on the Sales Page

[chtfld]

I've written a few sales pages before for my clients but I'm just getting started writing my own. In the past I've noticed clients making changes and adjusting what I write for them, but getting the rhyme or reason of it is always tough.

Anyhoo, my question is whether SEO on the sales page is as vital as it is in say, an article or a blog post. I know it's important, but how carefully does everyone tailor their page for their primary keywords?

[MontelloMarketing]

On page SEO is the worst thing you can do to a sales page.

If you need SEO, use other methods or keyword stuff a landing page. But for the love of god... (directly to clients, not you) leave the damn copy alone!

[Daniel Scott]

Dude, most of the time there IS no rhyme or reason to why a client will mess with your page, apart from the fact that they think they know better than you (which begs the question of why they paid you in the first place).

Half our job is to convince the client NOT to destroy our sales pages.

-Dan

P.S. Vin, how did I know you'd be the first one to jump on this thread? :P

[Collette]

Depends on your priorities.

If you want to sell your stuff, then you write to sell. Period.

The chances are that, if you are in tune with your market's mindset, you're going to wind up being pretty much optimized for the most relevant keywords, anyway.

There are other, much better ways to get your SEO accomplished than screwing about with your sales page.

[BrianMcLeod]

Dead horse... beaten.

[Barry Walls]

Originally Posted by Daniel Scott

Half our job is to convince the client NOT to destroy our sales pages.

Is the other half convincing them to split test it and leave the original intact?

[chtfld]

Originally Posted by Daniel Scott

Dude, most of the time there IS no rhyme or reason to why a client will mess with your page, apart from the fact that they think they know better than you (which begs the question of why they paid you in the first place).

Good point - I have a lot of fun sometimes trying to figure out what the difference is between my original page and the changes getting made. Good to know I'm not the only one in that boat (and a bit of a boost for my confidence in what I write).

[DougHughes]

I would agree that if you are writing to sell, then write to sell.

For the most part (depending on what market you are in) keyword optimizing a sales page isn't going to do much anyway.

When you think about SEO, think about why a search engine would rank a site higher than another. Search engines are looking for the most naturally occurring conditions that return the most relevant results for whatever was searched for.

In my experience, no sales page can or should be ranked high in organic searches (though there are things you can do to make your sales page appear more legit. more about those later).

In my opinion, creating sites that rank well in organic searches are better for driving traffic to a sales page.

Let me give you an example, if I were a search engine and you searched for hair loss or baldness, you would expect to be taken to a page with general information on the term.

If you search for that you will notice that the top ranking sites are all authority sites. Essentially what that means is these are sites that over time have been deemed to have some integrity or relevance.

The top sites I see are Wikipedia, About.com, medicinenet.com, Healthsystem.virginia.edu, Consumer Health News, Information and Resources Updated Daily


Most of the sites listed above are sites that have:

1. Been around for a while
2. Have multiple hundreds or thousands of pages
3. Have dozens or hundreds of Diggs or other social bookmarks
4. hundreds or thousands of backlinks from other authority (higher PR sites)
5. Relevant title tags
6. Relevant keywords somewhere in the neighborhood of 2%-5%
7. Relevant anchor text

Now don't get me wrong. Some of these sites that have been deemed authority sites are what they are by way of sticking around for a long enough time and just working their SEO year after year.

Here's an example of a site that is basically just an affiliate site but that has high ranking Diet Reviews and Reviews of Diets. Really nothing more than an affiliate review site. Here's another one for web hosting Web Hosting Reviews & Rating - Best Web Hosting 2009 total f--ing BS and all affiliate stuff. But...they have worked the SEO.

Here is something that may actually get you more work/money from your clients and also pander to their SEO needs.

Here's what you can do...

1. Create a bunch of keyword optimized page (By a bunch I mean like hundreds or thousands. Yes, you can use some crappy article app or hire a bunch of content writers (writeup a few hundred titles and then spin them with an article spinner). Don't worry about quality here.
2. Next, at the end of your sales page create a bunch of links to those pages you just created making sure that the anchor text of those links are keywords you want to rank for.
3. Here's the trick, make the color of the anchor text color very light against your background (not invisible(just very light), algorithms are probably hip to that). You can even create a false bottom to your sales page with some extra white space down below.
4. Create one or more blogs with a bunch of good content. Just find the top blogs in your niche, take all the articles, and have them rewritten for a few hundred dollars. Make numerous links in these blogs to your sales page.
5. Submit your most legitimate looking site to DMOZ.
6. Spend $1000-$2000 buying directory listings only in very relevant and targeted directories such as yahoo, or business.com...whatever the most relevant directories for your niche are.

Okay, sorry...I drifted a bit but anyhow, you get the point...here is an opportunity for you to sell your client on content creation services.

If you are a haughty DR copywriter and content creation is beneath you (understand), this is the perfect opportunity to make a nice profit.
Outsource the work to an article writing service, then, markup these services 30%-50%.

This is a win win situation for everyone.

• Your copy stays in tact
• your client benefits from legit SEO measures
• content creators put food on the table
• customers learn how to better solve their problems.

I hope that helps.

Best ~ Doug Hughes