To be sure, a fully integrated SEO strategy will consist of a combination of on-page and off-page tactics that will ultimately improve the page rank of a given website for a given search term. While SEO is primarily done to benefit the website and the business owner, it sometimes helps change the perspective of the prospects searching. By creating a content strategy based on the needs of your customers, you can target the right keywords and drive traffic that is more likely to convert to sales.
Go beyond keywords
Of course, all content marketing done for SEO purposes is based on the idea of providing the content that the prospect is looking for. However, creating content around consumer needs rather than a generic search term involves a deeper level of customer satisfaction that is much more likely to result in a sale. For example: a business decides to target a specific keyword based on keyword research. To get more people to find your brand when people search for these keywords and phrases, a lot of content is created (well optimized), everything that somehow contains the most important keyword. Naturally, increased content and matching keywords are likely to boost your website in SERPs (search engine results pages), but what happens then? The alarming reality is that much of this hard-earned traffic is often wasted, as high bounce rates reflect people clicking on your website, but not necessarily staying on it. So what can be done to address this problem?
The only way to remedy high bounce rates is to take a close look at the content portion of your branded content strategy. The content should not only be keyword-rich, but also value-added, relevant, and sometimes entertaining pieces that will encourage the audience to stay longer and perhaps take the first steps towards conversion.
Provide customer solutions
If every search term typed into Google is a problem or question that needs to be answered, consider it your brand’s job to provide a solution to that problem first and foremost. Do not promote or make a sale (which occurs after having established a relationship through other channels such as email database marketing), but to make sure that the person doing the search finds content that is relevant and useful.
To create content that doesn’t just get the clicks, but eventually the conversions, it’s important to do research that goes a bit beyond website analytics. While analytics tools are absolutely critical in creating an SEO strategy, when it comes to SEO and content convergence, it makes sense to think in both human and search engine crawler terms. Conducting surveys through your brand’s consumer email database or social media profile or even just testing content strategies through your email newsletter – these are all great ways to learn more about the needs and search terms of your consumers. By providing a solution in addition to engaging content, your brand can beat bounce rates and see more consumers make a purchase in the end.