SEO used to be concerned only with your website, but SEO now needs to support a wider role and include multiple channels.
There are three types of user searches:
If your goal is to hold a good position in SERPs and have more people find you via search activities, you’ll need to create and optimize content for all three search types.
Each of these search types captures customers at a particular point in their journey through the funnel. If you’re not optimizing content for all three, you’re missing one or more groups of prospects that could convert to paying customers.
With SEO, prospects are clicking links on SERPs and visiting your highly ranked blog posts or informational pages. Sales and conversion pages don’t usually rank high on SERPs, so you’ll want to optimize your high-ranking pages so that visitors are funneled to conversions and sales.
Understand the Intent Behind User Search Queries
Image credit: Benj Arriola
In order to do SEO funnel optimization on your site, it’s important to remember that users in each phase of their search – navigational, informational, or transactional – need to have an appropriate page that meets their unique needs.
Understanding users’ paths to conversion and what they need in each phase of your conversion funnel will help you create content for those targeted pages. Study how your users are converted and optimize content on your website for users in every stage of that path.
Your SEO funnel optimization efforts will attract users and result in conversions.
Searches make your site visible to the right users at the right time, if you’ve created the right content for them. Every user who lands on your site is motivated by search intent, and failure to understand that intent can lead to a huge loss in conversions, dwell time and click-through traffic.
SEO funnel optimization pushes users down the funnel by creating relevant content that can satisfy their needs – for all three search types, in every phase of the conversion funnel.
How Can You Do This?
SEO funnel optimization calls for more than optimizing an SEO campaign for last-click conversions. Optimizing your SEO campaign should include studying first-click conversions, last-click conversions and assisted conversions.
Looking at more than just last-click conversions will help you understand your customers and their search patterns.
You will also need to implement a content strategy that’s ready to support secondary and tertiary conversions, and a strategy that acts as assisted conversions.
Make sure you’re attracting users in every phase of the conversion funnel to capture the maximum number of assists with your content strategy.
If you miss any level of the funnel, you’re going to miss potential assisted conversions.
