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Comment by _b8r0 | Hacker News Reader

You might want to try some of Patrick's tips (of Bingo Card Creator fame) here:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/07/17/seo-for-software-compani...

I'd also suggest taking a look at http://www.seobook.com/

The one thing I would say is to look very carefully at what you want to achieve via SEO. I'm fairly certain that the majority of potential customers in our sector (information security) don't want to fill in a form, although we do have a few visitors. For us our site is more about communicating what we do for our customers, than getting people to invite us to do work for them, but of course that's a world of difference from trying to get someone to sign up to a web app.

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I'm fairly certain that the majority of potential customers in our sector (information security) don't want to fill in a form, although we do have a few visitors.

We are in the same sector and have had great success with the "step signup" process - i.e. contact forms.

YMMV. But mid-range corporates feel happy about such things.

Random observation; but for anything related to corporate purchasing the more finicky you make it (within reason) the better it is liked. Middle managers are overjoyed to ring you up, ask for a costing, then ring again for an invoice and finally a third time to give you card details.

That's quite interesting. Most of the people visiting our site come from other marketing channels and are (at least looking at the heatmaps and a/b testing results) generally checking us out.

Have you got a link to one of your sites with the step signup process?

Our marketing channel is usually word of mouth; so "sign up" works quite well. It is essentially "email us but with tactile feedback". We are in the same sector - but the product/services are somewhat different (along the lines of "help help we have a serious problem save us yesterday") so the demographic is probably fairly different.

And traffic from the sites are relatively low compared to someone being given our phone #, so it might have skewed data.

Unfortunately I can't really share more than that publicly (employers choice, not mine). But feel free to email me if you want (address in profile).

I totally agree with you!

Basic SEO knowledge could point out flaws, but it does take some experience to make a plan/strategy and purpose.

"Would SEO help you or would it be pointless?"

If you own a pizzeria in Gainesville, FL - why should you rank #1 for the term "Pizza"?

I love what I do, and I hope people who get replies from me see that! :)

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