When you are looking to optimize your SEO content, you can try lots of things from keyword searches to building a better platform. If you don’t get the bones down, nothing else will matter. Consumers can find your landing page and not be driven to do anything about it. SEO is important, but telling a good story is going to sell your products. Here are some tips on how to tell a better story with SEO to drive revenue.
Know Their Needs
Customers nowadays can find what they want in a heartbeat. It can be delivered within 24 hours, it can even be picked out at the store and set on a shelf so all you must do is walk in and pick up the products. People know what they want, when they want it, and how fast they want service or products. Shopping behaviors have changed immensely over the past five to ten years, more than at any time in history. Once you learn what people want, it is easier to target them to drive sales. It all starts with building a stronger search engine that brings them to your site.
Learn How to Listen
Since web traffic is passive in the sense of directly selling face-to-face, you must make sure people find what they want online. Most will not call you to ask about what is online if they cannot find it. They will simply venture elsewhere. Listening well means:
- Knowing your target customer inside and out
- Let it guide the content you create to attract them to your business
- Listen to feedback as it comes your way to determine what ideas, products, or concepts they are sharing and liking on social media
- Try sites like Quora with platforms that let customers talk about experiences
- Review social media consistently to see what is being shared and check out comments
Quora is one site people use to discuss topics of interest. If you want to learn from the ‘experts,’ your target audience is already online talking about it. You just need to go out and find it. Try these steps to get in there and check out what customers are discussing:
- Sign up for an account or get signed into a social media platform like Google for access
- Type in keywords you want to see (“blog traffic”) and look for results
- Write a blog post in response to a question or questions being posted by people since many others are likely wondering the same thing
Learn from the Experts
Sites like Quora, and others, are places to learn more about customer behavior than you ever thought possible. People are sharing their thoughts, feelings, and opinions online more than ever. High-quality content starts with looking at what people want. SEO can be driven using keywords people are talking about in forums. Google Analytics is another tool that lets you find out what readers want. You can check your most popular pages and posts to see total number of page views and see how long they spent on your pages. Some helpful tips:
- If people skim content and jump off less than a minute later, they may not find the content interesting enough to stick around
- Bounce rates are key and tell you how many people left without visiting other pages (typically 2-3 pages per visit is ideal)
- Exit rates tell you what percent of users left your site after seeing that page. If a high percentage of people left the website quickly, that may mean they are not finding what they want to know and don’t bother sticking around to look at the rest of your site
Don’t be afraid of negative feedback on your posts. If you have comments, engage with those and use them to improve your traffic using SEO in the future to provide what they want.
Get Visual
Video content is king in the world of online consumerism. People are visual when it comes to navigating around online. Gone are the days when words captured people’s imaginations. Videos and professional photography are needed to get people’s attention. If you are wondering how to convert traffic to sales using video content, look no further:
- Video content increases time people spend viewing content on a page
- Video content increases the likelihood they will browse more than the first page
- Optimized videos are the newest way to increase traffic and generate revenue
Start with making short videos talking about your brand. Do some fun demos or even do Facebook live to interact with potential consumers. Even in the world of online sales, people are still driven to engage with someone they feel they ‘know’ or can see versus someone they have never met.
Set up webinars or live interviews where people can stop in and ask questions. Track keyword matching and set up SEO to drive people to video content. This means going on multiple platforms and posting videos on social media and sites like Vimeo and YouTube. Online demand for how-to videos is only increasing as people are into do-it-yourself (DIY) more than ever. Give people incentive to keep coming back to learn from you just enough that they know how to do it, but still need your products and services to finish the job.
Read more relevant blog post: Kick Your Search Traffic Up a Notch with Better SEO