Let's get Digital, Digital: Understanding Content and SEO
Wanna get digital? Let’s get into SEO
You want their business . . . but how do you know what your customers are searching for?
Your online content is more than a summary of your services. Content is just one of many ways that you can cater to, and connect with, current and potential customers. If you’re an entrepreneur or blogger who runs a website, it’s likely that you’ve heard the term “SEO” before. Simply put, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) makes your website more attractive to search engines, like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. SEO encompasses many techniques to target buyer needs. Some common SEO practices include building a user-friendly website; keeping pages relevant and up to date; integrating social media; making sure HTML code is clean, etc.
You can also optimize content on your site by performing research and key-word analysis to show you which keywords get frequent traffic; keywords show what clients are most likely to search for. Although mastering the components of SEO strategy takes time and is difficult, enhancing your site’s content with keywords is just one of the many techniques you can use to appeal to search engines and, ultimately, customers.
What Do My Customers Want?
When you have a question that needs answering, a house that needs renovating, or a hunger that needs satiating, odds are that you’ll boot up your search engine long before revving your car’s engine. And since the quest for information often begins online, it’s crucial that your website’s content considers each phase of the buyer’s journey. If you can articulate the various concerns and situations that your potential buyers will face, you can also start optimizing content by incorporating keywords and phrases that cater to your intended audience.
Optimizing for keywords, and researching which keywords are more relevant to your services, can determine buyer intent, or the needs the user is trying to meet, based on the queries that are made in search engines. But buyer intent isn’t always clear. In fact, in this article by HubSpot, we can see that there are varying degrees of intent when we compare a simple term like “pizza” to the phrase “pizza delivery.” Typing “pizza delivery” into a search engine identifies a more specific need than “pizza” does.
Let’s investigate further by imagining a pizza delivery scenario: you’re a potential customer who is determined to spend the next several hours watching Netflix Your enjoyment is impeded by sudden hunger pains, which means you’re now in the mood for binge-eating—not binge-watching. You do what any seasoned Netflix-buff would do: You pull out your phone and type “pizza delivery” into google.
The search term “pizza delivery” signals the buyer’s intent to order pizza from an establishment that will deliver.
When intent is clear, like it is in this case, you’ll also gain a better understanding of other possible user intents. What results will be relevant or useful to them? Keyword analysis allows you to figure out which queries bring users to your site. Optimizing your content for specific keywords will help your buyers find you and what they need.
THREE TYPES OF USER QUERIES
Transforming your keywords into queries means that your content can effectively address multiple audiences. SEO Inc. outlines three common queries that are made in search engines: informational, navigational, and transactional queries. Incorporating SEO through keywords means that your content can be made useful to many customers, regardless of the stage of their intent.
1. INFORMATIONAL QUERIES: These customers aren’t entirely sure where they need to go or what information they need. Therefore, you’ll want to make sure that your content can show them how you can help them approach, or solve, their problem. Inform them about the products and services your company offers.
Example: “best laptops 2020” or “best laptops for students”
2. NAVIGATIONAL QUERIES: The intent here is clear; customers know what they want, so use SEO keywords to make sure that your audience knows you have what they’re looking for. Your content creates connections between pages on your site, and your search rankings will benefit from strong online presence and brand identity, which establishes trust with buyers
3. TRANSACTIONAL QUERIES: When you know that your audience wants to buy, you’ll be able to craft SEO to direct traffic to your purchase page. It’s important to note that you might want to include other transactional information to encourage repeat purchases, or promotions that get your customers to try new products (free trials, flyers, shipping rates etc.). They know what they’re looking for so be leery about leading them away from this page.
Example: “Dell XPS 13 canada” or “buy Dell XPS 13 online”
When you create landing pages and content that prioritize different intents and queries, you’re more likely to convert information seekers into buyers. Think of your potential buyers as child athletes: if you get in their face and demand they take action for something they haven’t trained for, you’ll scare them off; but, if you give that child shin pads, a jersey, and the tools to play the game, their desire to return to the field (or, in our case, website) is likely to increase!
At Symetric, we’ve got over 18 years of putting the user first. We want to help you integrate and execute SEO tactics effectively so that you can give your customers what they need in a way that strengthens your online presence.
Learning how to launch your own SEO campaign can be intimidating: after all, how do you go about determining what it is that your customers are looking for? And keyword optimization for your content is just the beginning! Our answer is simple: let us do the worrying for you!
If you’re starting your SEO journey, or looking to diversify your marketing efforts, contact us or visit our marketing page now! Request a quote to today and we’ll help you get more leads tomorrow