Marketing catalogs through SEO

By Catalogs Editorial Staff

Using SEO is the best way to get your catalogs found online

Marketing catalogs online opens up a whole new world of potential shoppers ? and buyers. But how to get all of those potential buyers to find your catalog?

Part of the answer lies in three little letters: SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) Marketing catalogs through SEO means you can attract the right kinds of people for your product mix, without sending out hundreds of catalogs to people who are only looking. Or worse, who will never even get past the first page.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is the art and science of researching the words people use online to look for products similar to the ones you’re selling. These words are then used to compose copy and create search tags and other code using those words so Google or other search engines will match up your page with those search words.

Another way to look at it is as a way to promote your catalog online to people who have come looking for your products, much as a traditional shopper would enter a store because of the window display. The prospective buyers window shop until they find you, and then come into the store to shop. The search terms are your window display. Your website or virtual catalog is the store.

How are the right words found?

There are a variety of tools that compile actual searches from the most popular search engines. They then count the number of web sites already using that term in their own pages. These two figures are used to create a measure of the search term’s value. Search terms that are a close match to your catalog’s content are then selected from the best rated terms. These are the phrases that should be used in your copy.
~
Does marketing catalogs with SEO mean writing nonsense?

Somewhere along the line, novice online marketers got the idea that writing SEO copy meant nothing more than stringing together the search terms into something that resembled word salad rather than meaningful content. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Well written SEO copy combines the best of marketing copy with the benefits of SEO terms. These two elements help the retailer or wholesaler in effectively marketing catalogs, products or services to the online shopper.

Why marketing catalogs online makes sense

In traditional catalog marketing, there were several ways to get catalogs into customers’ hands. Catalog reply cards, direct mail response forms or prospecting with entire catalogs all had their value. But with rising postage prices and increased resistance to what many people perceive as ?junk mail? has led many catalogers to look for a more effective way to reach potential customers.

Online catalog marketing means people who are actually searching for your products will find your catalog. That increases the chance that they will convert from a browser to a buyer. It eliminates the need for random catalog shipments based on little more than geography or general demographics. And because marketing catalogs online is less expensive than postage, your ROI will be higher.

Getting started in marketing catalogs online

Find an experienced SEO specialist to help set your catalog on the path to optimization.
SEO is part art, part science and part random-dart-throwing voodoo. But in the right hands, it works. It can transform shoppers’ searches into solid results on Google and Yahoo search results pages. That means your catalog will be found by people ready to buy.
It’s not magic. But when it comes to marketing catalogs online, it’s the very best way to bring eager shoppers to your virtual doorstep.