Contents
Tools of the Trade
My favourite go to tools for SEO are SEMRush and Ahrefs. If you’re just starting out, you can check out some free options in Ahrefs alternatives.
Digital Customer Journey
You can target different stages of the customer journey starting with research and ending with the transaction or money terms.
For example, with eCommerce, the most obvious would be:
“Buy [kombucha]”
For affiliate sites, the main ones include:
“Best [Landing Page Software]”
“Top [CRM Software for Real Estate Agents]”
General Comparisons
[Ahrefs] Review
The keywords for a software business that indicates the prospect is further along the customer journey can be “[your brand or competitor brand] review“.
Search Intent
When you try to rank your website, you need to keep in mind what the person is looking for and match your landing page accordingly. Are they at the research phase? Are they already aware of the solution?
You can figure out search intent by looking at what Google ranks the highest since Google will try to serve what it thinks is most relevant.
If the top 10 results are all product listings and product categories, then you know that there’s commercial intent.
Something to keep in mind is that search volume doesn’t mean opportunity. Search intent and really understanding what part of the customer journey the prospect is at will be key for your content and SEO efforts.
Ranking Difficulty
There are a lot of search terms within the SaaS market with low search volume and, at the same time, very difficult to rank for. There are also other terms that are earlier on in the customer journey and have much higher search volume and also relatively easy to rank for. Doing your homework will reveal these to you and certainly having the right SEO tool will make it a lot easier for you.
Decide On Your SEO Strategy
Depending on how established your website is, you can decide which search terms to prioritize.
If you’re just starting out, then going after long tail keywords and relevant keywords that are easy to rank for is one strategy. You can also write a very useful and relevant piece of content and try to build links simultaneously.
Make sure that you consider the available topics and its related terms before diving in to make sure that the effort will be worth your while.
Writing the Content
You can write the content yourself, outsource it, or even have a GPT3-based AI write it out for you.
A tool like Frase or Clearscope is useful because it can help you identify content gaps in case you’ve missed anything.
It’s a much better strategy to try and write quality content that serves the audience.
Keep in mind the different kinds of Content Types:
- How to guides and tutorials (How to design high converting landing pages). Headline ideas include:
- How To [Desired Outcome].
- The Secret To [Desired Outcome].
- 7 [Proven/Easy] Ways To [Desired Outcome].
- List posts (Top 5 landing page software for paid advertising)
- Reviews (Leadpages Review)
- Comparisons (Leadpages vs Clickfunnels)
When you write, keep in mind the AIDA framework which stands for:
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
When writing your piece, focus on making the content genuinely helpful for the reader and easy to read. Use simple and engaging language, break up any long pieces of texts with headlines, subheadlines, and images/videos.