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Originally published in SiteProNews, December 05, 2007

Search engine marketing hinges on a basic process that involves the following simple procedure:

• The prospect wants to search for some thing. He or she needs some information on a particular topic or they are actually looking to buy some thing off the internet.
• The prospect opens up the search page of a popular search engine suited to his or her purpose.
• The Prospect types the keyword into the search bar of the search engine and clicks the go button.
• The prospect receives the search engines results and on the right hand side is your advertisement that he or she will be enticed to click and thereby complete the search engine marketing chain.

This is where most merchants go wrong. They believe that the process ends at this stage and that simply driving the traffic to the site is the prime goal of the search engine marketing cycle. The rest is going to happen automatically.

As Phillip Kotler once famously remarked, the marketing process does not end with the customer walking into the store, the process is only over once the customer has duly walked out having purchased your product and then truly the marketing process gets over.

The same thing applies to search engine marketing. The prospect must convert his show of interest into a purchase to ensure that the cycle is truly over.

Here are some tips to ensure that the prospect converts his interest into a purchase:-

In order for them to buy something, make sure you have a landing page that is convincing and that will encourage them to click on the "Buy Now" button.

The landing page is the first page that the prospect will come across once he or she clicks on the Buy Now Icon. So it should be well designed with a good layout and must be aesthetically appealing.

The beauty of landing pages is that they don't even have to be a part of your site to begin with. If your company is currently running a temporary offer on sex toys, you can simply build a temporary page and call it "sex toys", with a link that states: sex toys. After your temporary offer is over, you can always remove that page from your site.

A landing page that sells needs to be designed in a way that needs a minimal amount of clicks to get what they are looking for. Build your landing pages to show them the product or service you are selling, and then show them the "Buy Now" button.

Even if your organization doesn't sell anything tangible and the purpose of all your search engine marketing is to ask the prospects communicate with you or sign up for your free newsletter, the landing page needs to be compelling and must sell them on your company.

Remember that the first impression is the last impression and this rings true even in today’s day and age. So before you start blaming your affiliates for the lack of prospects and the low conversion rate take a good hard look at your landing page. It just might tell you the reason for your slow growth.

FIND NOW more useful Search Engine Marketing tips on my blog Work From Home and DISCOVER FULL POTENTIAL of Search Engine Optimatization!

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