Always put the customer first, right? When you think of a product idea, you think of the customer. If your best decisions always involve the customer, why not apply that to your content marketing strategies, implementing user-focused experiences to drive conversions?
Here are the top ways to first think of the user when tackling your search engine optimization approach from search engine ranking, landing, and interacting with your website.
From Searcher to User: Write the Content They’re Looking For
Encourage visitors to your site to convert to buyers and want to come back again and again with some simple content marketing tips.
First, users determine if they have found the page they want to see by looking up results that match with their search queries on their search engine of choice. Give them the confidence that they’ve found the site with what they are looking for by putting the keywords in meta titles and descriptions.
Next, once they’ve clicked and become a visitor to your site, the keywords should also appear on the page they landed on from the SERP (Search Engine Result Pages).
Lastly, include keywords above the fold, provide keyword focus information, and of course, clearly highlight related cross links.
These tricks will make your visitors more confident they found what they came for and comfortable navigating the website.
From The Start: Be a Solutions Expert
Users likely landed on your page because they need to address a pain point. Be clear in helping users figure out the issue, confirm that it is a problem, and offer a solution.
Giving them the right direction to resolve the issue is a great introduction to your products and services, and leaves them feeling like you’re the trusted source to return to the next time.
Move Users Forward
Don’t allow your content to be the dead-end to the user experience, whether your visitors got the solution they were looking for or not.
Use CTAs (calls-to-action) to convert your users and visitors into buyers, or at the very least, keep them in the marketing loop.
CTAs might ask the user to purchase a product, subscribe to a newsletter, sign up to an email list, or make a reservation. If they liked the content you offered them, they’ll be glad to know they can stay connected to you and will be looking for the next step in their user experience.
Optimize your Website
Your website visitor is a hopeful customer, and what better way to get them there by making them feel more welcome and want to stay and engage?
Boosting page loading times will not only help your users feel more at ease when browsing your site, but it will also decrease your bounce rate and not let your potential customers switch to your competitor. Keep page loading speeds to less than 1 second by optimizing image size, enabling browser caching, using short and punchy content and only keeping essential plugs-in and codes.
Furthermore, your content should be easy to read, keep users engaged, and invite more visitors down the page to the sales and marketing cycle funnel. Do this by writing shorter paragraphs and using formatting techniques like numbered lists, bullet points, graphics, and symbols.
Perhaps, most important of all, is to think of the mobile user first when designing the layout and writing content for search engine optimization. Apply a finger-friendly design for user accessibility. When you browse and engage with content, and especially when you shop, 7 times out of 10 (source: iQMetrix), you’re on a mobile device! Yet another reason to keep your content simple, clear, and interactive.
Strategies:
- Minimum size standards for touch targets: 48 x 48 px
- Make text and typography elements large by default
- Help user navigate with clear layouts and visible elements (key information that is discernible at a glance)
Localize it!
Last, but not least, localize your content. Shoppers are looking for the “near me” user experience no matter what they are trying to buy.
Localization includes adapting content, product names, name formatting, the displayed currency, and the payment method to suit the visitor’s location.
It’s not just language specific, but market specific, and marketing is cultural! If you have English pages for your site in Australia, Singapore, and India, for example, you must run keyword research on each unique market before optimizing the page’s keyword results.
Localization is equal parts culture and creativity to connect best with your potential customers.
So, is your website user-focused in content, design, and localization? Consider the above tips in your company’s next marketing and strategic planning session.
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