The key to generating business through your website is being found by potential customers for the keywords and phrases they search for.
This sounds simple, but when you factor in competition for these terms and the unknown element of not knowing exactly how Google, Bing and Yahoo’s search algorithms work, the whole task gets a lot more complex.
But this shouldn’t put you off, the benefits of securing good organic search positioning and the business leads this generates, far outweighs any inherent complexities.
Look at these stats about organic search engine results
In a survey of 1.4 billion searches conducted by 28 million UK citizens across Google and Bing, overwhelmingly 94% of users clicked on organic search results compared with only 6% who clicked on paid ads.
71.33% of internet searches resulted in a click from page one organic search results (Advanced Web Ranking)
There are two principal ways, pay per click advertising and organic search engine optimisation. I’m going to show you how to do the latter with inbound marketing, here’s why:
Benefits of inbound marketing and organic search results
Organic search results are trusted and high rankings imply industry authority and leadership.
Organic search results have a much higher conversion rate that PPC
Organic search is sustainable, the work you put in to securing organic search results endures where as PPC requires a continuous monthly spend
Other benefits can be found in our blog '5 Benefits of Inbound Marketing over Adwords'
Organic search engine optimisation is the process of getting your website to appear in natural search engine results by creating content that is optimised for the search terms your potential clients use. This is often referred to as content marketing.
Where inbound marketing differs from content marketing is that content is precisely targeted to nurture website visitors through the buying process to a conversion. It is a proven methodology for marketing online, which will outperform traditional outbound methods.
Here’s how it works
The first step in getting found online is to get to know your customers by creating detailed personas. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal client; what they look like, where they work, what they typically buy, how much they spend, what issues they typically experience in the buying process and where they go to find information.
Once you know your potential customers you can begin to form a content strategy which details what content you should write, what key terms you should use and where you should distribute this content. All the answers for your content strategy come from your audience research, and because it’s research based you know that what you’re doing is right.
The next step is to put the detail into your content strategy and start writing and distributing content. Think about the products or services that you sell and the typical questions that occur during the buying process and at what stage they occur. Much of the information you need will come from your buyer personas. Then answer these questions in your content.
Content can take the form of a blog, website page, whitepaper or eGuide. The key is to answer the sales questions with content and optimise that content for the search terms that relate to the question your buyers are asking.
For tips on optimising your content read 'Get found by Google. 7 easy website design tips to optimise your pages'.
Great content that meets the needs of your audience will attract visitors to your website. But it’s not just about attracting visitors, you want to attract potential customers at different stages of the journey, to ensure that you have a rich sales pipeline. This means attracting customers at the top, middle and bottom of the sales funnel. Here’s how content varies at each stage of the funnel.
TOFU – Top of the funnel (Awareness) content is content aimed at attracting website visitors (researchers) who aren’t yet ready to buy but are researching about the product or service you offer.
MOFU – Middle of the funnel (Consideration) content is content that demonstrates to visitors that not only does your business provide the products or services they’re after, but also that you are the best person to buy it from.
BOFU – Bottom of the funnel (Decision) content, is content that helps convert your potential customers into actual customers.
Revisit your content strategy and make sure that you have content that addresses each stage of the funnel.
The final step in our approach is to monitor your content and how your business ranks for key terms and phrases.
Look for opportunities around content, if you start to rank at the top of page two for a search term or phrase, write more content around the subject and aim to push your business on to page one. If a certain type of content is yielding a number of enquiries use it to cross promote other products or services that would be interesting to the buyer.
Targeted content, that answers a users search query, is of a high quality and is inherently sharable is the best way for your business to be found online. Inbound takes this one step further and helps you nurture your new site visitors into customers by answering the sales queries they have at each stage of the buying process.
There are more stages to the inbound approach, but what I’ve detailed here gives you the basic principles. To get started using inbound, we’ve compiled a FREE checklist to starting your first inbound campaign. Download the guide and select a key search term or phrase and start writing content around it.
One thing to bear in mind is that while organic search results have longevity, they, like anything organic, take time to nurture and grow.
Try inbound yourself or call one of our inbound specialists who will be able to advise you on 01789 608015.
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