Way before computers, life seems simple. You get to a store to buy what you need. Well, that’s assuming your neighborhood contains just about everything you desire (which is wishful thinking even in those days). But life is never simple, especially true in the time of the virus. When you’re left in one small corner of the Earth to tinker through things for months on end, you’re bound to fidget and grow restless. With the possibility of a deadly infectious pathogen outside, ordering online is definitely a better option.
But who decides what services are available when you search for a particular food? That job, of course, goes to Google. The world’s biggest search engine is there to cater to your longing, whatever it is. To date, there are about 3.5 billion Google searches daily worldwide, a volume that gets the Mountain View, CA company the lion share of the searches. To date, Google sits on 92.18% share of the total search pie worldwide; its closest competitors are eating crumbs and leftovers.
Obviously, for your business to thrive, you need to stay on top of Google searches, a job description called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It sure is a technical world. But one thing’s certain; you need to target your audience to make your SEO work wonders for your brand. Here’s how.
Find Your Niche
First things first. In a world filled with cutthroat competition, thinking straight can be an uphill climb. Even the biggest corporations know that getting a large piece of the market is never a walk in the park. It’s tedious work.
Your first order of business then is to identify your niche. If you don’t do this right, you’re bound to be wasting your SEO efforts. It’s like shooting an invisible bird with a hail of bullets. It’s not going to work.
Thus, you may need to readjust your sights if you find you’re working on the wrong niche. A glorious example here is Sam Ovens, a New Zealander entrepreneur who found out Americans were his better business. And so he made one timely switch.
If you’re falling short on taking the necessary steps in business, you may have to step back and regroup yourself. A leadership coaching service should bid you well in this regard. When you have a clear-cut vision of what you need to do, getting your marketing off the ground is easy. That’s what coaching can help you with.
Segment Your Buying Process
Now, as you may know by now, getting visitors to your website is one thing; getting them to buy from you is another. Thus, you need to segment your buying process. To do that, sit down with your marketing team and come up with your sales funnel. This is basically how you transform your online visitor into a buying customer.
There are different phases in the sales funnel. You need to come up with suitable messaging and marketing efforts in your SEO to cater to each phase. We’re talking about the following phases in the sales funnel:
- Awareness phase (site visit)
- Interest phase (more info needed)
- Evaluation phase (comparisons)
- Decision phase (final decision)
- Buying phase
Being able to identify what phase of your audience you are catering to is essential. When you do, converting these digital visitors should be a lot easier.
Make the Most of Long-tailed Keywords
You might ask, what’s with long-tailed keyword phrases? Why get them? Well, keywords are actually referring to the search terms an online citizen puts in the Google search box. This is golden information. When you know what your audience is actually searching for, you’d be able to cater to their needs better.
That may sound technical, but it’s simple. A good example here is Amazon. When the Jeff Bezos-led company saw that PPE was in high demand, it prioritized them over other items in its fulfillment centers. At the height of the pandemic, essentials such as alcohol and PPE (e.g., face masks) were the items they packed for shipping, leaving other items second. Small wonder, it grew to become a pandemic giant.
You need to prioritize long-tail keywords as it’s the keyword most people use when they’re about to buy a product. In short, people are not just searching randomly. Rather, they’re just finalizing the details of their buy.
Though long-tail keywords are few and far between compared to their short-tail counterparts, they’re more effective in getting you the sales.
Deploy Social Listening
Your SEO needs to be grounded on audience behavior. That’s why social listening is spot on. At its core, social listening is the monitoring of your own brand’s social media for feedback. But it doesn’t end there. Social listening should provide actionable steps to bring your audience back to the fold should an issue arise (as they always will).
In short, social listening allows you to understand your audience better. In the process, you get a better grip on what makes your audience tick. And with that, you should position your brand better and profit handsomely thereafter.
