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When Will SEO Not Work for Your Business?

I was on a discovery call recently with a potential client, an international business owner.  He is in the food subscription business, and wanted to start doing some SEO.  He had been spending about $20k to $30k every month on Facebook and social media campaigns and wanted to understand how he could leverage search engine optimization to help him gain more traction and increase sales.

When I started looking at his market, we quickly realized that he’s in a business where people are not immediately looking for a subscription box service. It’s more of an impulse buy on part of the consumer.   This equates to a low demand for his solution even though it’s a good one.

When there’s little to no demand for your business or the solution your company offers, this means people are not searching for you or your business solution on Google.  It is in this case where SEO is not likely going to work in the typical way.  SEO campaigns will work, in terms of finding the key words, then binding those words that have search volume to increase rankings and get traffic. In this case, there is not one specific key word that has the ability to focus on gaining traffic.

With that said, we figured out his target audience and who would buy his subscription food service.  We then developed a content marketing strategy that would add value to his customer when they’re looking for specific needs.  We turned his target audience into a media hub for his food delivery service by focusing on consumer needs and wants.

As an advertiser, he has a product by teaming up with other companies and putting products together to sell.  Now, just by talking about their products online they will in turn advertise his product.  This way, it’s a free way for him to get traffic to his audience and advertise his product to them.  That’s going to work tremendously well for his business.

Your business may not be the typical business that has keywords with search volume baked in with demand.  That’s not to say you can’t also find your audience and target some trigger points to meet their actual needs to solve a problem they didn’t know they had.  Using campaigns or events on various scales where people are looking for specific products you work with, and then showcase your product, to get more sales that way.

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Turning Content into Sales: 5 Ways to Increase Blog Opt-ins and Leads

Content Marketing

Trends come and go in digital marketing, but the most effective ways to reach your audience and sell your product or service rarely change. One highly effective digital marketing strategy that’s been around for decades is email marketing.

Email marketers in all industries will agree that for an email campaign to be worth pursuing, it’s essential to have a large and diverse email list. The bigger your reach, the greater the promotional effects of a carefully timed sales email.

In this blog post, we’ll look at the interesting synergy that exists between content and your in-house email list. We’ll also share five strategies that you can use to get more email opt-ins to your email list using your blog content.

Add an overlay pop-up email capture form

Have you ever read a blog post, scrolled down the page and then noticed a modal box pop onto your screen asking for your email address? Overlay pop-ups aren’t subtle, but they’re highly effective at increasing your opt-in rate.

The key to success with modal pop-ups is avoiding being annoying. Don’t let your overlay email capture form get in the way of your content; if it does, readers aren’t likely to opt in and may get a negative view of your business.

One of the most effective ways to generate email opt-ins with an overlay without annoying readers is by triggering it to appear after a certain time limit. You could also use JavaScript to trigger the modal pop-up when users finish a blog post.

Invite users to opt in at the end of a blog post

Instead of adding a modal dialog box that asks users to opt in, you can be far more subtle and simply request their email address at the end of a blog post. This can be as easy as adding an email capture form below the byline of your company blog.

Opt-in boxes at the bottom of a blog post tend to have lower opt-in rates than their more invasive pop-up counterparts, but with a higher lead quality. Since users have read your content before opting in, they’re more likely to respond to your emails.

Offer an informational eBook or white paper

One of the best ways to encourage users to opt in to your email list is by offering an eBook or white paper with more information. The more related the eBook is to your product or service, the more targeted and valuable your subscribers will be.

In order for an eBook to be an effective email capture incentive, it needs to address a problem your target audience is facing. Check your ideal customer profile and think of a common question within your industry that you could answer in detail.

The logistics of offering an eBook as an opt-in incentive are simple. Almost all email marketing platforms, including popular tools such as AWeber and MailChimp, allow you to redirect users to a download page after confirming their email address.

Make users opt in to view your free content

Does your blog post feature an instructional video or free download? If so, you can increase your opt-in rate from your blog posts by requiring users to provide their email address before they can view your dynamic content.

This list building strategy can be annoying for visitors, particularly if you use it in a wide range of blog posts. However, many readers will happily opt in to your list if a high quality resource or detailed, helpful video becomes available.

As with any incentive-based opt-in method, there’s a decline in lead quality with a method like this. Generally speaking, incentivized opt-in leads like these are least likely to convert into customers or clients further down the line.

Offer an exclusive discount or free giveaway

Discount offers are fantastic tools for encouraging your website’s visitors to opt in to your email list. If you offer a product or service, give email subscribers a special discount that’s only available via email to prompt them to opt in.

You can combine the discount strategy with other opt-in methods to maximize your email opt-in rate. For example, your blog’s modal pop-up box could mention pricing benefits and special offers that are only available to email subscribers.

As with the content locking method above, there’s a tradeoff in lead quality when a discount offer is part of your marketing strategy. Be aware that a tactic such as this could attract subscribers and customers who are only interested in discounts.