Lee Odden’s just wrote a great post on SEO for PR firms. I wanted to address something related to his post that I hear on a small business level from entrepreneurs who want to know the magic key to unlocking more sales.

They’d ask:

If I could only do one thing to make my website better what should I do?

Followed up by ‘How fast before I see results?’

First off, there is no magic key to unlocking a website to getting a business more sales, customers or visibility. What there is, is the ability to make a small change that will lead to the biggest change in results.

So whats the 80/20 for improving a website to help the business goals?

The number one thing a website can do for a business is get in front of the right people –your ideal customers.

There was an amazing copywriter, who recently passed, Gary Halibert who asked if all things being equal and we were both in the restaurant business what one advantage would you want to help you succeed?
Some might say the best food, or in our case the best features on our website, others said a great dining atmosphere, for a website a jazzed up design. Instead, Gary said the only advantage he would want is a starving crowd.
Where is your business’ starving crowd? What keywords are they using on Google to fill their hunger?

That would be the one thing to do. Get in front of the hungry web searchers who are looking for your kind of business!

If you could have just one thing to help your business what would it be? It would be on the top of the results page for the keywords that my ideal customer is looking for and watch how much sales increase.

The one thing I would do is be a top result for my buyer’s keywords.

If I was on the first page of the search engines for a hungry keyword, I could get untold more sales than the small businesses listed on the third, fourth or even second pages because I have the buyer’s attention right away and most never look past the 4th listing.

So the one thing I would do is Market Research for Organic Search Results for the business’ market. Make your website’s goal to reflect the best keywords your market is looking for and be the first thing they see.

Keep in mind you want hungry qualified people who are not just your overall market but your real detailed description of your ideal individual in that market. If you’re a small locally owned business, chances are most of your market is within a certain mile radius of your office. Make sure that area is part of your profile’s critera. For example, if you’re a chiropractor, don’t be looking at coming up for your general market of back pain but instead back pain relief in your town would be much more like the hungry searchers who are in your real market.