A fully integrated SEO strategy will undoubtedly consist of a combination of on-page and off-page tactics that will ultimately improve a particular website's ranking for a particular search term. While SEO is mostly done for the benefit of the website and business owner, sometimes it helps to shift the perspective to the prospects who are doing the searches. By creating a content strategy based on the needs of your customers, you will be able to target the right keywords and attract traffic that is more likely to convert into sales.
Beyond keywords
Of course, all content marketing done for SEO purposes is based on the idea of providing the content that the prospect is actually looking for. However, creating content around the consumer's needs rather than a generic search term leads to a deeper level of customer satisfaction, which is much more likely to lead to a sale. For example: A company decides to target a specific keyword based on keyword research. In order for more people to find her brand when people search for those keywords and phrases, she creates a ton of (well-optimized) content – all containing that all-important keyword in some way. Of course, plenty of content and matching keywords are likely to get your site up the SERPs (search engine results pages), but what happens next? The disturbing reality is that a large portion of this hard-earned traffic often goes to waste, as high bounce rates reflect that people are clicking but not necessarily staying on your site. So what can be done to address this issue?
The only way to fix high bounce rates is to take a hard look at the content side of your brand's content strategy. The content should not only be keyword rich, but should add value, be relevant and sometimes entertaining and encourage the audience to stay longer and maybe make the first moves towards conversion.
Providing solutions for customers
If every search term typed into Google is a problem or question that needs an answer – consider it your brand's job to provide a solution to that problem first and foremost. Not to promote or make a sale (that comes later after you've built a relationship through other channels like email database marketing), but to make sure the searcher finds content that's relevant and useful .
In order to create content that will bring not only clicks, but ultimately conversions, it's important to do some research that goes a little beyond website analytics. While analytics tools are absolutely fundamental to creating an SEO strategy, when it comes to converging content and SEO, it makes sense to think in terms of both human content and search engine crawlers. Conducting surveys through your brands' consumer email database or social media profile, or even regularly testing content strategies through your email newsletter – these are all great ways to gain more insight into with the needs and search terms of your consumers. By providing a solution as well as good content, your brand can beat bounce rates and see more consumers ultimately make a purchase.
