A marketing funnel, also known as a sales funnel or customer journey, consists of the steps or paths that potential customers take from their first impression of a product or service to their purchasing decision.
Without fully defining and understanding the customer journey or business marketing path, many SEO strategies, investments, and efforts will be wasted.
I've seen this many times and it speaks volumes about the importance of having a specific and realistic SEO plan.
No matter how new or established your brand or business is — or how advanced your efforts are — it's still important to practice regularly.
Changes in customer behavior, changes in competition, and even your business itself may experience changes in its goals and objectives that may impact how you want to direct your marketing efforts.
Marketing level
Before we dive into the SEO audience targeting funnel, I want to take a moment to summarize how funnel stages are determined:
At the top of the funnel
At the top of the funnel, the main goal is to create awareness for your target audience.
Potential customers learn about your product, product or service through various channels such as advertising, social media, content marketing and word of mouth.
Remember, this step is informative, educational and aimed at meeting the needs of the target audience, not promoting the product directly.
Pleasure center
Somewhere along the way, people have now expressed interest in your product or service and are actively looking for more information.
You can do this by interacting with your content in more meaningful ways, signing up for newsletters, following your social media accounts, or browsing product pages on your website.
At this stage of the conversion funnel, your content should focus on detailed information about your product or service, its benefits, features, and how you can meet specific customer needs.
Bottom of the funnel
In the final stages of the conversion funnel, consumers evaluate their options to make an informed decision about whether to make a purchase or not.
You can compare your offer with your competitors by reading reviews and making sure your offer is the right choice for them.
It's important to provide these people with content that builds trust and loyalty to your brand, encourages them to convert, and leaves a positive, lasting impression.
Target your SEO efforts during this time
By aligning your SEO strategy with user research goals at each stage of the marketing funnel, you can deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time.
Understand the research objectives
The most accepted research objectives are informational, exploratory, business and marketing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is closely related to understanding user needs and providing content that meets the needs of your target audience.
When we find the right content at the wrong time, or vice versa, we end up investing a lot of time and effort on the same conversion opportunities.
Below I will detail how search intent can vary by marketing channel level:
Level of awareness
At the top of the funnel, search intent is usually informative.
Users are looking for information or answers to questions that are educational or informative. Search queries typically include “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how.”
To target power users, I recommend the following:
- Identify relevant keywords and phrases that your audience is most likely to use when searching for information about your industry, products or services. The keywords you use should focus on broad information keywords.
- Create high-quality, relevant and engaging content that answers your audience's key elements, questions and needs. This can include blog posts, infographics, videos, and social media content.
- Target keywords that frequently trigger featured snippets in search results. This will help you gain more visibility and build your authority.
Approximate level
As your audience enters the consideration stage, their intent shifts to business and transactions. You intend to decide on a product or service at a particular time and are considering the available options.
To find the center channel finder, you must:
- Start by targeting more specific long-tail keywords that indicate a user's desire to learn more or make a decision. These keywords often include words like “best,” “reviews,” “compare,” or “how to choose.”
- Create comprehensive guides, product reviews, and comparison articles that provide useful information and help users make informed decisions.
- When necessary , create location-specific content using location-based keywords to direct people to your physical location. Local SEO can help attract people to your site rather than nearby competitors.
Conversion rate
Finally, we have reached a turning point where consumers want to browse and shop.
You know what you want and are probably looking for your specific product or products.
Pay attention to search and marketing keywords that often contain brand names, product names, or ad-related phrases such as "buy," "order," "subscribe," or "call."
To direct users to the bottom of the funnel, you need to:
- Optimize product pages and service descriptions to target keywords that indicate user purchasing intent: b. "Buy", "Order", "Discount" or "Price".
- Use schema markup to provide detailed product information in search results, making it easier for users to compare and make decisions.
Bonus: tracking tools
Google Analytics4
Google Analytics 4 is a tracking tool that provides comprehensive information about website traffic, user behavior and conversions.
Use it to track where users land on your site, how they interact with your content, and the path they take before converting.
We recommend setting goals and conversion paths to measure specific events, such as the start and end of a form.
Google Search Console
Search Console provides valuable data insights for monitoring search queries and page performance.
It lets you track which keywords are driving traffic to a page based on KPIs like clicks, impressions, and CTR.
Search Console reports are a valuable resource for identifying issues with how Google crawls and indexes your site and key web performance indicators.
Keyword research tools
You can use SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz to find and track specific SEO keywords.
All of these tools allow you to determine the intent of a particular keyword, as well as the estimated search volume and ranking difficulty of the keyword.
Diploma
It's important to know your marketing channels and balance your SEO focus with user needs at every level. Search engine optimization (SEO) takes a lot of time and effort.
Additionally, it may take time to achieve a measurable return on investment (ROI).
The more you know how to attract leads, the more you can move through the sales funnel and reduce wasteful techniques that don't deliver results through continuous improvement.
Additional sources:
Featured Image: Vitaly Vodolazsky/shutterstock
