30-Day Blog Post Challenge – Day 2: Focusing on Your Customer

This is the continuation of the 30-day blogging challenge. (You can read part one describing the rules here) Today, we gonna be talking about your customer,  customer experience, and how to earn the trust of your customer.

Focusing on your customer should be the top priority for any business.

When I started Athena SEO my goal was to get as many customers as possible and provide the SEO services to them. I knew very little about the way you should treat your customers. The key component to your relations to your customers is attention.

Why attention? Because when someone reaches out to you and tells you that someone recommended them to you, you already have some credit and trust. But then it’s up to you, whether you’ll be able to maintain that trust or you lose it.

What does it mean to maintain trust? There are a couple of things I learned along the way that I would like to share with you, that are related to customer service and attention to your customers.

1. One thing I did right since I started my SEO career was sending weekly reports to my clients every Friday, no matter what. I did that consistently since around 2009 to around 2015 and I believe that’s the absolutely right thing to do and a great weapon in your arsenal to earn and maintain your customers’ trust and attention. (I’ve switched from every Friday’s reports to a random format due to changes in the nature of SEO work I am doing these days, more on that later)
2. Another thing I learned from Andy Frisella during the first 10X Growth Con is that you need to satisfy every need of your clients (or potential clients). Andy gave an example of a lady who came to their store by occasion and asked if the store assistant could help her change the battery in her car. Despite the fact that Andy’s store had nothing to do with cars, the store assistant gladly helped that lady and that resulted in great customer experience.
3. You need to answer any comments and any reviews to your business and products. It’s especially important with negative reviews. A good social marketing manager or a business owner should be jumping right in and figure out what’s going on and how to fix/improve customer experience. Grant Cardone even suggests turning negative reviews into potential sales opportunities.
4. Be honest. If things go wrong, be the first one to announce that to your client. The reason is that they will find out sooner or later anyway. So it’s better if you acknowledge that first and take responsibility.
5. Everyone is concerned about themselves and nobody cares about you. When I talk to a potential client I value every second of their time (and I would actually recommend doing that to any person you communicate with) and interrupt them very rarely if ever. If they are talking to you then that means they commit their time because they trust you and they expect to get something from you. Do not lose that trust.

From the SEO standpoint, what does it mean to focus on your customer? Google has always been thinking in terms of the customer user experience. You can see it in their Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines for their Search Quality Assesment team. Google recommends to classify all sites as vitally important, somewhat important, average, not important, and spammy (this classification is approximate, and I highly recommend anyone who is serious about becoming a good marketer to get themselves acquainted with Google’s guidelines.)

Focusing on your customer means that when you create your website or when you post any content on your website you think about your customer first. When you work with a web development team on rebuilding your website make sure that you keep your customer in mind. Do you really want to have About Us page in the main menu at the top of your website? (Once again, they do not care about you, they care about themselves and whether or not you can help them solve their problem. And you literally have 5 seconds of their time.) Ask your web developer to plan your website structure accordingly. When potential customers come to your website they need to see that you care about them first. Make it clear in the copy as close to the top of your home page as possible and convey it through the UX of your website.

Before publishing something ask yourself first: is this information useful for my target customers? Will it help them solve their problems? And what is the problem that my target customer is trying to solve? Your customers might be searching Google for “pool remodeling” when in reality their true intent might be making their pool more energy efficient or safer for their kids. Understanding their true intent means focusing on the customer in terms of SEO.

One other thing that is distantly related to the topic of this blog post is competitor analysis. Some companies are concerned about what their competitors do. I would recommend to not put too much attention to your competitors and focus on what you can do for your website visitors and clients instead. There are a few reasons for that:

1. Our actions are where our attention is.
2. Each company is unique and has their own approach to doing things and serving their customers.

Every brand is unique and occupies a certain place in the customer’s mind. Instead of attempting to take the place of your competitor in your customer’s mind, spend time on forming the image of your brand.

Up for a challenge? Check my first blog in the series, the link is at the top of this page. In short: I encourage you to write and post one article on your website every day for 30 days straight on the topic of your expertise. There are multiple benefits to doing that. Read more about it in the original post. Additionally, amplify the content you create by sharing it on social networks with hashtag #30dayblogchallenge. If you support this idea feel free to get in touch with me on Instagram and on Twitter.

Also, let me know if you would like me to cover any particular topics related to business/marketing.

#30dayblogpostchallenge