SEO traffic is still my favorite. It’s a tough grind though. If you get everything right, you are still waiting in line behind other people targeting the same keywords as you. You can always tell the blog greenhorns. They walk around strutting their stuff, telling everyone to go longtail. Hey, as if I’ve never heard that one before.
Targeting longtail keywords is excellent, but there is something more than that going on here. Do you want that superb piece of content you just spent days honing to be the first contact you have with a potential customer?
Your blog post, white paper, or article should serve as your home run swing which knocks it right out of the park, not just a little first pitch swing you use to eye up a pitcher.
I keep hearing the web is in its infancy. So, I think our next phase in this crazy scramble for eyeballs is crafting a precision piece of content for our second or third touch with a potential customer rather than the first. We need to create content specifically designed for not only the ideal avatar of the customer but precisely designed to meet their customer where they are in the marketing funnel. The business world places too much emphasis on ranking every blog post well in Google search. If certain customers get to specific pieces of your content too early, it will either hurt your potential for a sale or cost too much to land that customer.
The reader already knows who you are and what you sell.
When a customer comes from a search query, they’re looking for specific answers. Much of the time your blog post or article is the first contact they are having with you. The search engine does provide a headline and gives you a small space to describe the content, but for the most part, they are coming in blind just looking for the answers. Not only does your post need to satisfy their need for the answer, but needs to identify you and the product.
Now that social media is such a significant driver of traffic, people coming to read your more extended pieces of content are coming after being at least a little familiar with you and your product. This content should be the second touch instead of the first. Your long-form blog post or article now becomes a landing page for a hungry customer coming from a conversation on social media. It should not be the same piece of content people are landing on from search. This customer might appear to be the same demographics wise, but their intent is different. They both are at different stages in your communication funnel. Reading the same piece of content may lose them or confuse them. Or, send them to a salesperson to answer a ton of unnecessary questions.
The solution is creating specific content targeting not only a particular avatar of the customer but where that customer is coming from and the interaction we presumably had with them before they got to our site.
This leaves us thinking now that maybe all types of content doesn’t need to meet Googles SEO standards because customers coming from a search are very much different than customers coming from social media even though their demographics looks the same.
This subject gets pretty thick. We could also divide the content up by the particular social media platform from which people are coming. Twitter users are coming from a different experience than Facebook users. Quora users are coming from a different experience than Medium users. How far you want to dissect it depends on your budget and time you want to spend examining it. All I want to present here is the idea that it is something to be considered.
The blog post is there to establish more credibility through case studies.
One good example of a second contact form of content is the case study. After a potential customer comes through a link from social media, you probably already convinced them they need to learn more. They have already been introduced to you, your product or service, and maybe read a couple of testimonials of people your product helped. The slam dunk is an article walking them through how you implemented your product to solve another customers problem, i.e., the case study. Give them the details. Let them get close to how your product or service works. Here is where outstanding writing comes into the fold. Make them feel their solution is a push of a button away or just a simple phone call.
We have a lawyer in Milwaukee who’s motto is, “One call, that’s all!” It sets the mindset of the customer of all they need is to pick up the phone, and he takes over and handles everything else. It’s the easy button for his law firm. Write your case study like an easy button. Present them a solution by similar example and give them an easy button.
The blog post is there to answer the faqs.
Another second touch blog post type I like is the FAQ type of post as I like to call it. After you’ve made the first contact on social media, the prospect will undoubtedly develop some questions. A solid blog post which knocks off these questions, or several blog posts all linked in a series to answer these questions would be much more useful to this person. There is no need to go through the formality of introducing them again to the product. Their interest now focuses on the questions in their head. Reintroducing them to content they already know may break their emotional enthusiasm to learn more. Skip the shaking of hands and all the small talk you did on Twitter and Facebook and get right to the heart of the matter.
They’re coming to your site to learn more and dig deeper, give it to them. Avoid the fluff of sending them to the handshaking and introductions homepage. Throw them in the deep end of the pool and let them immerse themselves in the depth of service your company offers. I see too many large corporate websites just scratching the surface of explaining their product or service. I’ve been to many sites where after ten minutes of poking around, I still can’t figure out what they provide. Give it to them in plain English in very blunt terms. Make it so easy they could explain it to their 9-year-old on the way to soccer practice.
I took some writing instruction from a well-known writer a while ago named Malcome Gladwell. He said he tries to write about complex ideas with simple language. Your company could sell cooling systems which are used in nuclear reactors, but you need to explain it like you’re selling comic books to kids. Make sure every prospect knows exactly what you do and how it will help them, inside out, upside down, forward and backward.
Make sure your home page doesn’t overcomplicate by trying to sell.
There is one purpose of your homepage. I call it the handshake. It’s the shiny brochure you pick up at the tradeshow and shove in your case. I’ve suggested to many clients to design a homepage like their brochure and Vise Versa.
The homepage is your initial introduction. Your homepage should make it clear who you are, the type of product you sell, and who can benefit from your product or service, all non-relevant people needn’t go any further. Here’s why.
Marketing and sales cost money. Even marketing in the super cheap internet space where you may think everyone is a lead gets expensive in scale. Big mailing lists cost money. Sales phone calls cost money. The little extra connections add up into big cash. If you try too hard to sell from your home page, you may end up with browsers and ‘tire kickers’ (a car industry term to describe people wandering car lots with no intention to buy) you will never turn into buyers. Weed these type of people out before going to deep into your message, before they get on the phone with one of your expensive sales representatives and waste their time describing what your homepage should have done in the first page.
Your home page should also serve as the roadmap, and the start of the sales funnel into your business. Gone are the days where we can only rely on the top navigation to lead people around the site. Your homepage should have teaser content and links to other pages on your site to find out more. The big take away here is your homepage isn’t a complete sales piece, it’s a handshake brochure to learn more.
The sad part about this is the web moves so fast, by the time you are reading this everything may change again. Maybe our social media pages will become the new landing pages. I don’t see it though, and I don’t recommend it. We need to own our places on the web. Social media places are borrowed spaces, many living on borrowed time. Use social media to start the conversation and get the handshaking out of the way then send your most relevant eyeballs to specific pieces of content to get your phone ringing.
Till next time, be safe.
Kevin