Knowing how successful sales funnels work and making sure yours are constructed effectively is the best way to ensure an effective ROI when applying search engine optimization (SEO) to your website. If you’re aware that your website is nothing more than part of your sales funnel, then you have the proper context for making sure your SEO is being done correctly.

The most successful White Hat SEO focuses on optimizing from the perspective of the entire sales funnel.

To put it another way: optimize your sales funnels, not just your website. Section 4 below (Website Optimization) is what is often considered “SEO.” The purpose of this blog series is to help you gain an expanded perspective and achieve extraordinary results for your business.

The major key to having a successful online business and effective, White Hat SEO is understanding how to effectively design sales funnels and how to continue optimizing them over time.

So let’s look at sales funnel structure and how it relates to search engine optimization:

Sales Funnel Structure

The components of a successful sales funnel are (in order):

  1. Research
    1. Keyword Research – Where do I place my sales funnels?
    2. Competitive Analysis – What do my competitors’ funnels look like? What am I up against?
  2. Branding – What kind of experience do my users have as they pass through my sales funnel(s)? Am I communicating the right things to my customers as they pass through the funnel?
  3. User Interface Design (Website Design) – Do my funnels look and work the way they need to?
  4. Website Optimization (SEO) – Is my website content arranged in the way that search engines prefer?
  5. Marketing – Do I want to speed up the process of bringing traffic into my sales funnels?
    Real, effective “search engine optimization” includes all of the above. All these components work in concert and need to be done effectively to create exceptional success for your business. So let’s break these down one at a time.

Next: SEO Research: How an SEO Consultant approaches keyword research and competitive analysis »