photo by By mikebaird

Do you have B.O? We’ll you better get it because it’s as important as SEO and SMO in growing your business.

SEO; search engine optimization; the art and science of being ‘found’ around specific keywords, phrases.

SMO; social media or network optimization; the art and science of engaging your tribe online.

B.O. No- not body odor. Behavior Optimization. The art and science of eliciting specific consumer behavior, conversions, actions.

Click on any Google or Face book ad. What happens? Does the landing page sync up with the ad you clicked? Is it easy to take action? Is it clear what action, behavior the company, organization wants you to take? How many options do you have? Are they thinking B.O. or have they over invested in SEO and SMO and under invested in what really counts- making it simple and clear for you and I to take action.

Behavior is the key to growing your business. Consumer behavior that drives the key performance indicators of your business; opting in to your mailing list, requesting an appointment, ordering the product, paying for a subscription, sharing your content, referring a friend, purchasing the service, requesting a quote, downloading the e-book, etc, etc.

I’ve learned B.O. the hard way. You could say I got a little overwhelmed with SEO and SMO and forgot all about B.O. When you and I are not clear about the key behaviors we want to reinforce, elicit, reward, incentivize, simplify, encourage, create we over complicate things and all the content and all the SEO and SMO in the world can’t make up for our lack of conversions, leads….and everything else critical to making a sale.

I too have fallen victim to the false belief content is king. Content without B.O is not king. No way. No how.

Content is king, if an only if it’s tied to the financial drivers of the business/organization. All the content in the world, not optimized for key words won’t be found and content not aligned with the goal behaviors, KPI’s of organization is unwise.

Don’t stop at optimizing your social media, online networking or SEO. Think behavior. Get B.O. It might not be good for your dating life, but it will grow your business.

B.O. questions

How does the company make money?

What’s the goal of this content, online campaign, promotion or communication?

What is the metric, performance indicator that will be used to measure success?

Now what is the behavior you want your (consumer-member-prospect-reader) to take? The behavior that drives the metric/goal, the behavior that is key to success for this content, page, campaign or promotion?

So you have SEO and SMO? Don’t forget B.O: Grow Your Business! What’s the behavior you want to optimize?

Pam Hoelzle

Learn more about me here