Social media is great but can often feel like a popularity contest. Yes, your following may increase but how exactly are you going to make money out of that? This article helps you turn ratings into rent in guiding you on how to use SEO to increase your conversions.
Be easy to find on Google
You need to make sure your ideal clients are finding you online. One great way to develop targeted content is to think about your current or past clients’ pain points. Then, conduct keyword research to identify how people are searching for solutions online. As you create content, you can also use a traditional marketing funnel to help determine which topics are more likely to bring in visitors and lead to conversion. Your outer funnel topics include information relevant to your audience, but there may not be a direct correlation with your services.
Your user experience should be pleasant – and fast!
Once a visitor finds you – via your website or social media – their discovery should be pleasant. When it comes to authority, you want to make sure your content makes sense for your business. While relevance is important for SEO, it also signals to readers whether or not they should trust you. For example, a web designer creating content about fitness coaching wouldn’t seem trustworthy to either search engines or readers. Continuity between your content and services creates a better experience, and your visitors will more likely have the mindset to convert. Also, does your blog have a navigation menu and search bar they can easily use? Especially if they want to learn more about you and your services, it shouldn’t take more than a few clicks to contact you for more information. Furthermore, check your page speed often to make sure you have fast loading times. While there are many different factors that can affect your page speed, some common fixes include optimizing images, cleaning up JavaScript files and removing unnecessary plugins.
Use analytics to know what to optimize
Once you’ve published your content, SEO can help you determine how to optimize for specific conversions. Say you’ve published a guide about digital marketing, but you log into Google Search Console and notice it’s starting to rank and pull in traffic for the keyword “Instagram advertising ideas.” As you’re reviewing the content on your site, pay attention to the SEO metrics below to help guide your optimization. With free Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts, you can gather all of the following data:
Impressions – Content that receives a good amount of impressions without clicks means it’s showing on search pages, but people still aren’t interested. Optimize by changing the title or description to capture your audience’s attention.
Traffic and click-through rates – Pages that get the most traffic or clicks are a great place to start optimizing for conversions. Do these pages have clear call-to-actions (CTAs)? If so, try improving the design and copy.
Time on page and bounce rate – Some of your pages might get a significant amount of clicks, but visitors leave after just a few seconds. Usually, this is a sign that your page experience needs improvement.
Keyword rankings – Continue to check audience search behaviour through keyword rankings, which can help you determine how to edit and optimize your content. You can monitor keyword rankings for free through Google Search Console.
Clear Calls to Action
Include one primary CTA on each page that’s associated with the conversion action you want visitors to take. Avoid competing CTAs like multiple buttons near each other–it shouldn’t be confusing for readers to understand what to do next once they read your content. If your primary goal is to gain leads, embedding simple contact forms is an easy way to allow your visitors to contact you and enter your pipeline.
So, when it comes to turning traffic into paying clients, instead of using a “set it and forget it approach,” think of your content as a tool you can continue to optimize and leverage.The next time you’re developing SEO-focused content, consider the entire user journey from Google to your inbox. By maintaining a conversion-focused view, SEO can become one of the most valuable tools for gaining more qualified, paying clients.
