By Haley Hill

The power of referral marketing shouldn’t be news on how to obtain valuable, long-lasting
customers. The basics seems obvious to human nature – make sure to provide your customer with
a wow experience, underpromise and overdeliver, and ask those satisfied clients to “pass your
name around the water cooler”, as our CEO Shawn likes to say. Even after all the referral
marketing, the small detail that is often overlooked is what your business looks like online. It
might seem obvious, but if you want to unlock the secret power of referrals in growing your
business, you need to pay more attention to those search engines.

The Power of Referrals

When you get a recommendation for a business or even a delicious cafe to visit, what is the first thing that you do? Google it, of course! Even if you get a stellar referral from a close friend, we
all undoubtedly go Google it anyway. Referrals are as organic as marketing gets, but how can
you pair it up with something else in the arsenal to achieve even more leads and loyal customers?
The unspoken power of referrals is simply this: search engine optimization (SEO). We are in a
world of saturated content – if your business ranks well on search engines, you guarantee to
attract and keep more customers. What is SEO in a nutshell? It helps your business improve
search engine rankings by its relevance and authority. It’s the simple activity of ensuring a
website can be found with words and phrases that are relevant to what that site is offering. In
many respects, it is simple quality control. Still confused by the basics?

Check out SEO Man’s comic strip explanation below!

SEO Man Explains SEO

Now, you’re probably still wondering: how exactly does SEO help my referral marketing?
Imagine this: if a previous customer provides a referral of your business to their friend, that
friend is going to whip out their cell, and check Google for your legitimacy. People want to see
that business in a first page ranking position or they start to lose interest FAST. There are so
many websites out there, and your average joe isn’t going to surf past that first page. In order to
get that stellar ranking, you need to do your homework and understand what kind of content your
potential customers are looking for; in other words, you need to have that relevance and
authority to make sure those referrals coming your way aren’t going to waste. Still wondering
how to optimize your search engine results? Check out this visual rendition of Maslow’s Hierarchy, and the beginner’s guide to SEO!

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO

Search engine optimization is the secret power to referral marketing, because everything starts at
that search bar. Start at the bottom of the triangle. Do your research, zone in on your weaknesses,
and impress search engines with your enhanced online presence. Not only will SEO bring more
organic traffic to your site, it will also ensure future referrals from slipping out of your grasp.
Stay tuned for even more SEO tips coming your way from The Newsletter Pro blog!