- What's the difference between SEO and CRO?
- More than just the letters.
- We're gonna talk about it here on The Journey.
So what's the difference between SEO and CRO?
Well you know that amazing feeling you get
when you just see on Google Analytics,
or whatever you're tracking your visitors with,
you just get a ton of traffic to your website and pages.
It's a great feeling, isn't it?
- Yeah it's the best feeling in the world.
But then all of a sudden,
you come to the realization that
none of that is actually translating into actual purchases,
or conversions for you.
There's nothing.
So what's the point?
That's basically the difference between SEO and CRO.
So Nealey, let's start with the basics.
What does SEO stand for?
And what does CRO stand for?
- So SEO, search engine optimization.
Most people know what this is.
It's essentially your rankings on, let's say Google,
or Bing, and where you appear there.
CRO, it's not mentioned a lot,
but it's basically conversion rate optimization.
And that's basically how often your website
converts someone to either send you a message,
or buy your products, or whatever your main goal
of your website is.
- So think of these two as like peanut butter and jelly,
right?
They have to work together towards that same goal
of actually converting people into buyers.
So with GoDaddy Social,
one of the things that I help our small, local businesses do
with our services, is help them not only get seen
on all these pages,
but then make sure they get chosen, right?
Because anybody can find you on these pages.
But if your pages aren't set up to look great,
then they're just gonna hit the back button,
and go to one of your competitors.
- Right, and that conversion rate optimization,
it can be a plethora of things on your website.
Maybe it's changing your buttons to have
more of a vibrant color so people will click on it.
Maybe it's the text you use on your website.
Whatever that looks like, it's just small little changes
to start getting that percentage of people
that convert, convert, convert, and go up from there.
Do you know grocery stores actually did their own
little bit of a conversion rate optimization?
- What's a grocery store?
- What's a grocery store? - Just kidding.
- She orders all her food.
- They're still around.
- But basically, so, you probably noticed it too.
Like all grocery stores are the same,
and they're there for a reason.
The staples like milk and eggs
that we have to get because they're delicious,
they're usually in the very back
because they want you to browse everything else.
And then all the fresh vibrant fruits and vegetables
that just look so tasty and delicious,
right there, directly to the right.
They basically just recorded,
or had their recordings of people
in their stores essentially.
And they noticed that everyone would veer off to the right.
So they wanted to have something
nice and appealing right there.
And then scents, we all like just nice scents.
They put flowers and bread right at the front
so it just hits us right there.
- Those tricky grocery stores.
- Exactly, they did their own conversion rate optimization.
And you can do the same with your website
and start to really convert people and follow their habits
to hopefully buy more things.
- Now that I'm thinking about actually grocery store trips,
I actually start out with the fruit, like you said.
- Directly to the right.
- And then at the end you have to get the milk and eggs.
You're in the back, geniuses.
- It's the same thing with like little kids cereal, right?
It's not gonna be at the top, right?
It's not gonna make sense.
Little kids are gonna see it right there,
say, "I want these Cookie Crisps, mom and dad."
They're gonna cry and scream and you have to get it
because they're adorable.
- They thought about everything.
- Everything.
- So one thing I know a lot of people did in the past
was a tactic called keyword stuffing.
And now what this is, whatever your search term was,
whether it's maroon shirts, or awesome shoes,
or whatever they look like,
they just added a bunch of random, generic key words
all throughout their site.
Or they hid it.
Like they had a white background,
and then a white text with all those keywords stuffed.
- Wow, so just basically trying to beat the system?
- Beat the system.
Google of course found out,
all the other search engines found out.
And then now they're penalized for doing that.
So any SEO person that says,
"We need to keyword stuff on your site,"
is probably not someone you want to hire.
- So with the rise of voice search
and everyone searching on their phones nowadays,
short keywords are a thing of the past, really.
So, you can try to optimize for a few words.
But it's gonna be really hard to beat out
those giants whenever it comes to that.
It's gonna cost a lot more,
and it's really hard to compete, coming from that angle.
- Yeah it's super competitive with those short keywords.
And you also want to look at long tail keywords.
And essentially what this is,
it's not something like running shoes.
'Cause if someone's searching running shoes,
there's not really an intent.
You have no idea what they're searching for
when they search running shoes.
Are they a new runner?
Are they looking to purchase running shoes?
Are they looking just to browse,
or do they actually want to buy?
Now a long tail keyword might be like,
white Adidas running shoes for men.
That's a longer keyword search
that you can basically optimize your website for
on your pages for.
There's not gonna be as much competition
with that long tail keyword as running shoes would be.
Because like you said, the giants,
basically the big business that have way more money
than those small businesses,
they're pouring all their money into that.
But that CRO is not there.
Even the big brands are wasting their money,
capitalize on those long tail keywords, and beat them.
- And even though you see a lot more searches
with those general terms, like running shoes,
it doesn't mean those, basically those people
are window shoppers, right?
So whenever you're looking for a specific type of shoe.
I know if there's a pair of Adidas that I want,
I'm looking for that specific type,
and I'm looking for those long tail keywords.
And whenever you are looking for a specific type
and you're more detailed,
then you've actually done your research,
you're ready to actually make a purchasing decision.
So which one would you rather have?
A more general search of people who are just gonna
hit the back button and forget they ever searched for that?
Or a more specific buyer that's ready
to actually move forward and buy your product?
- Yeah and I know something cool
that a lot of people are doing now
to figure out maybe awesome search words or keywords,
is start typing say "running shoes" on Google,
and Google will start to give you other suggestions
of things people searched for
when they start typing "running shoes".
And those are just some cool examples
that you can use to really optimize your website,
and optimize your keyword results.
Now, if someone tells you to choose between
SEO and CRO, run for the hills.
Those things can not be mutually exclusive.
- Yeah you definitely have to have both working together.
I mean one of the things that drives me crazy
is when I see small local business owners
who are paying all this money to be at the top of the list,
whether that's with ads, or you know, certain words,
and then you click on their actual pages,
or their website, and it doesn't look good.
I mean consumers are way too smart nowadays.
They know that people can pay to be at the top
of these lists.
So they're actually gonna make a decision for themselves
after that point.
So you can't just have SEO,
you also have to have SEO and CRO.
- So start with keywords first.
Figure out what you're users intent is going to be.
What are those search terms
that they are gonna be looking for?
And then follow it up with
the copy and content on your site.
That way you can really talk to their pain points,
talk to them directly with what they're searching for.
- Yeah, so, as we said earlier,
step one, get seen, step two, get chosen.
So now you know the difference between SEO and CRO.
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