Shooting to Score: Leveraging SEO to Boost Your Conversions

Wayne Gretzky isn’t the Great One because he scored goals.

Gretzky is the Great One because, for every one of his goals, he had two assists.

When it comes to digital marketing, an exceptional SEO marketing strategy should look like Gretzky’s lauded hockey career: a strong conversion rate with an even stronger assisted conversion rate.

Here’s how SEO can help you improve both your conversion & assisted conversion rates.

The Conversion Funnel

Whether you consider a conversion a lead, a sale, or something else entirely, there will always be a conversion funnel.

The funnel is a series of stages taken by a user before fully converting.

A basic version of the funnel will include at least three stages: attention, connection, and conversion.

A good SEO marketing strategy will target all three stages of the funnel.

Attention

At the top of the funnel sits Attention. This is the earliest stage of the customer journey and is usually associated with brand awareness.

At this stage, a prospective client will be performing informational searches in search engines. For example, ‘does protein powder really help muscle growth?’.

At this stage, the user is unlikely ready to purchase the product/service. Rather, they are gathering basic information on the product/service to help them decide whether it may fulfill their needs.

SEO-driven content focused on this stage of the conversion funnel could include blog posts, landing pages, and other multimedia assets like videos or podcasts that answer the search query.

The goal of SEO-driven content focused on this stage of the funnel isn’t to make a direct conversion. The goal is to assist in a future conversion, often from other channels beyond organic.

For example, the goal of top-of-funnel SEO-driven content will more likely be secondary conversions like newsletter signups. This secondary conversion may result in a full conversion (ex. a sale) down the road via future e-news blasts.

Connection

In the middle of the funnel is Connection.

At this stage, prospective customers are performing commercial searches in search engines. In other words, they have decided the product/service is of benefit to them and they intend to convert. However, they may not be sure which service provider or brand is best.

Commercial search queries might look like ‘best protein powder supplements’.

In most instances, an SEO marketing strategy will focus on off-site tactics to capture mid-funnel searches. For example, generating user reviews on Google My Business, Amazon, Facebook, or another third-party review website like Trustpilot.

If a potential customer organically finds a significant number of positive reviews on third-party platforms, this may give them the confidence to convert.

Another example of an off-site, mid-funnel SEO marketing strategy is SEO PR. In other words, trying to have other high-authority, relevant websites and news sources review, write about, or simply link back to your brand, product, or service.

The higher the number of organic mentions and reviews, as well as the more positive the mentions and reviews, equals the likelihood of a conversion occurring.

Conversion

Finally, at the bottom of the funnel is ‘Conversion’.

At this stage, a prospective client has completed the majority of their research and is ready to convert. While they still might be performing more refined commercial searches (for example, ‘iPhone 13 vs Google Pixel 6’), they are more likely performing transactional searches.

Transactional search queries are highly specific product or service searches, with the intention of finding a corresponding product or service page. These queries may identify a specific brand name or simply describe the desired product or service in great detail. ‘iPhone 13 silver’ and ‘renters insurance 1-bedroom condo Ontario’ are both examples of bottom-of-funnel transactional searches.

At this stage of the funnel, SEO is entirely focused on direct/last-click conversions. In other words, shooting to score.

For a bottom-of-funnel conversion to occur, a product or service page must be optimized to both appear in search engine results pages for the query and be optimized for a seamless transaction. In other words, search engine optimization and conversion rate optimization are of equal importance.

Scoring Goals With an SEO Agency

SEO is not an easy play. If it were, everyone would be winning.

In fact, SEO is an advanced digital marketing strategy that requires cross-department buy-in and a long-term vision.

SEO marketing agencies can help businesses develop and execute a fully-realized strategy that doesn’t just score direct/last-click conversions. But rather, a strategy that scores direct/last-click conversions and assisted conversions.

Specifically, SEO marketing agencies can help:

• Develop a fully-realized, multifaceted strategy that converts;
• Write SEO-driven content that targets each level of the conversion funnel;
• Execute SEO-driven PR tactics to build off-site authority;
• Optimize webpages for both organic visibility and conversion rate; and,
• Defensively prepare websites for algorithm updates and unexpected shifts in the digital marketing sphere.

If you’re considering an SEO marketing play, partnering with an experienced SEO agency to write and execute your strategy is your best bet at a successful organic slap shot.

Learn more about SEO marketing on the Pedestal Search blog. Or contact us today for a free 30-minute SEO marketing assessment of your business’s website.