If you check your analytics frequently, you’ll most likely have noticed that most of your traffic comes from a few blog posts. However, the posts with the highest traffic are not always the ones that bring in the most conversions. This seems counterintuitive, but we’ll explain why.

Many of the keywords that bring in the most traffic are on the top of the funnel, i.e. don’t have a purchase intent. These are short, generic keywords like “piano”.

If you want a search term from someone who is interested in buying, it would be something like “buy electronic piano roland”. This second search term is a long-tail keyword. Can you tell the difference? It’s a lot more detailed and it has a buying intent, i.e. the customer is ready to buy.

But what does this have to do with pain points? And what is pain point SEO? We’ll explain soon, so stay put!

What Is Pain Point SEO?

Pain point SEO is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on the problem your product solves. Rather than focusing on features, it focuses on benefits. Because, ultimately, that’s why customers buy from you: to eliminate the problem they are facing.

This strategy analyses your users’ pain points, which results in content that targets their issue and presents your product as a solution.

Of course, the keyword research for this kind of SEO implies specific tactics. First of all, you need to find out how your customers look for your product online. You can use a tool that tells you which questions are searched in relation to a specific keyword. In this example, we used “paleo diet”:

As you can see, there is a large variety of questions that users are asking about your product. Also, if you use SERPed, you can use the Long Tail Keywords tool:

Long Tail Keywords allows you to figure out which keywords have purchase intent, low competition and a decent search volume.

Pain point SEO stands in contrast with volume-driven SEO. Volume-driven SEO brings you traffic, but pain point SEO brings you conversions.

This applies especially for B2B, where there is a typically long research process before the prospect decides to buy or subscribe. These users will be at the bottom of the funnel and will be aware of what you offer. This is what a sales funnel looks like:

As you can see, users begin at the top of the funnel. On each stage of the funnel, a few leads slide off. The ones that get to the bottom, the “Purchase” stage, are leads that know what they want and are ready to buy. However, as you know, most leads never get to the purchase stage, which reinforces the need to act upon your pain points.

The more educated your customers are about your product, the easier it is for them to decide.

Now you know how and why you should create keyword research tactics to fit pain point SEO. But are there any frameworks that can help you develop this kind of SEO content? We’ll show you a few in the next section.

Frameworks for Pain Point SEO Content

There are a variety of content you can create for pain point SEO. Here are some examples to get you started.

Comparison posts

If you want to highlight why your product is the best one that is available, write a comparison article. Research your main competitors and show how your product offers a better value for money. Users buy benefits, not features.

WooFresh created a comparison between Platformly and HubSpot. Here it is…

This kind of content approaches your customers’ issues and how you solve them compared to your competitors. List the facts and let the readers decide for themselves.

Best product or service lists

Readers love lists. Creating a list is a great idea if you’re unsure how to structure an article to improve traffic and engagement.

In this list post, WooFresh mentions a few different SEO tools and what distinguishes them. This is a great example of pain point SEO. By listing the benefits of each tool, it becomes clear which of them is better for each of your readers.

Different use cases call for different approaches. By listing products or services that are related to what you sell, you can easily get your customer’s attention.

Alternatives to ‘X’

Usually, there is a popular product that serves as the main offer in a specific market. In our case, we could say Ahrefs or SEMRush are the main competitors for SERPed.

This is a great content idea: show your product or service as an alternative to your main competitor, and explain why there are many reasonable alternatives out there.

In our case, many people are looking for an SEO tool for their company or agency. Ahrefs is well-known, but you can do the same using SERPed, at an incredibly lower price. Why pay more when you can get the same results at a lower price?

Other than price, SERPed also has other advantages such as the Agency add-on, which allows you to find customers using several prospector tools. Let’s say your agency helps companies whose websites are not responsive. The mobile prospector helps you find businesses that need that update.

As you can see, it’s easy to find alternatives to even the most popular tools. Sometimes, if something is “mainstream” or more expensive, that does not always mean it’s the best available.

An alternative software that fits your readers’ needs is a great pain point SEO subject. Remember to focus on benefits rather than features (i.e. what can this tool do for me?).

Articles about pricing

One main pain point for users is pricing. After all, not everyone can afford the most expensive tools, and as time passes, people’s needs might change. An example is email marketing and marketing automation software.

Tools like ActiveCampaign and Hubspot boast results, but do you really need to spend all that money to get a service that fits the bill? Tools like Platformly offer similar features and benefits at a lower price.

So, it’s clever to compare pricing and plans for these tools in order for readers to understand which fits their business better. When it comes to pain point SEO, pricing comparisons can create great content for your readers.

Product or service use cases

Use cases are also important for prospective customers: speaking of how you solve a specific issue for a business will give your prospects an idea of how your product or service will help them.

Also, use cases and case studies function as social proof: if other customers similar to you are happy about that product, wouldn’t you like to see what it was all about?

Now that we’ve described a few types of content you can use for your pain point SEO strategy, here are a few pertinent questions that will help you develop conversion-focused content, the main goal of pain point SEO.

Survey Questions for Conversion Focused SEO Topics

Survey questions, in this case, should promote detailed answers. Use “why”, “how”, “what”, and other question words to create open-ended questions.

The kind of answers these questions promote will be more detailed and allow you to create use cases and case studies easily. Surveys are great to understand what current customers (or even past customers s) think about your product, what they like and what needs improvement.

By focusing on your customer pain points, you can manage expectations and create social proof for your website or other media.

Let’s dive into a few questions you should ask in your survey and why.

1. What problem does our product solve?

You know the purpose of your product or service. You know why you created it. But your users might have a different opinion, because they know what they are trying to achieve with your product. So, it’s important to ask them: what problem does our product solve for you?

The answer to this question might be surprising, but it’s important to detail further: how does this product solve that problem? What benefits are the most valuable for you?

It’s important to stay open to different approaches. Your business is about your customers: if you’re not helping them, maybe you need to re-think your approach.

In order to be customer-centric, you need to understand which problems you are solving for your customer base, and how your product can be appealing to prospects and leads.

2. If our product or service disappeared, what product/service would you use as an alternative?

This is a very important question for your survey. You might see one product or service as your main competitor.

However, the product or service that could replace you, according to your customers, is your real competitor. How do you stack up against their offer? What are your advantages and disadvantages in comparison to that competitor?

Using this question is great for pain point SEO, as it makes clear what it is about your product that your customers value. The benefits of your product against that of your main competitor are a great starting point to creating content.

3. How would you describe our product/service to a friend who knows nothing about us?

This is an open-ended question that can get you a lot of material for social proof and your SEO content strategy. By describing your product to someone who doesn’t know what it is for, your customers offer you information about how you should sell it.

This survey question lets your customers tell you their pain points and the problem your product solves. Once you have this material, you just need to get the gist of it and use it to create SEO content. Customer opinion tells you a lot about how you should advertise your product or service online.

4. What are the top 3 benefits that you receive from our product/service?

If customers could pick three top benefits of using your product, what would they mention? Maybe ease of use, or the quality of your customer service – the point is, what your customers consider to be benefits can be totally different from the benefits you explore in your SEO content.

This question can give you a different perspective on what customers value in your product or service, and motivate a new SEO content strategy based on your findings.

5. If you were to search for our product or service, what would you search for?

This question is ideal to make sure you’re targeting the right keywords in your SEO content strategy. It also helps you understand your customers’ language and the way they communicate about your product.

It might seem like it’s easy to know how people search for your brand online. However, until prospects know what kind of product or service will fix their problem, they search Google several times with different intents…

The goal is to discover keywords with buying intent. These keywords lie at the bottom of your sales funnel, and they are the ones you should focus on to increase conversions. Other search intents are important too, but you need to make sure your content is getting readers to buy from you.

Wrapping Up

The main rule for pain point SEO is simple: focus on the problem you solve for your customers. Also, focus on benefits, not features. Benefits are the reason why customers buy from you. Features can only take you so far; if you don’t focus on your customers, your business will be in trouble.

And, finally, as we mentioned, remember to use keywords that express purchase intent to improve your conversion rate on your website.

If you’d like to find out more about SERPed, check out our Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

The post Content Strategy For Pain Point SEO appeared first on Serped.com.

Have you heard of the skyscraper technique for SEO? Chances are, you’ve seen this technique being promoted, but you’re not sure if it will work for you. 

The great thing about skyscraping is that it can work for all kinds of businesses if you follow the correct process. Once you understand how the skyscraper technique works, you’ll see how it can help improve your backlink structure and increase the number of visitors to your website. Read on to find out how!

What Is The Skyscraper Technique?

The foundations of skyscraping were laid out by Brian Dean from Backlinko. Over the years, other SEO experts have written about the skyscraper technique and how it works. 

The skyscraper technique is an SEO tactic that uses research and link building through blogger outreach. The technique revolves around finding popular articles on the subject you want to write about, select one of those articles, and see how you can create your own better version of it. This can mean using different types of media, creating infographics and so on.

Make sure that you are actually creating something better, not article spinning. You need to create something new that has the potential to get you to the first spot on SERPs (search engine result pages). 

Why Should You Use The Skyscraper Technique?

There are three main reasons why you should use the skyscraper technique in your content strategy. 

First of all, if you choose a popular article that ranks high, you know there is demand for that specific subject. Analyze why that content is so popular, for example, does it use established sources, does it solve a problem for the readers, etc. Make sure to keep the same search intent on the new piece you are creating. 

Secondly, if the first article was popular, this means that there is a specific audience that is interested in this specific topic and will be interested in what you have to say. If your article makes the subject exciting and up to date, you can easily get the links you need by reaching out to those that are already linked to the first article.

Lastly, if Google ranks that original content high, by creating something better and more interesting, you get a chance to outrank it with your new piece. So, if you do it right, you have a decent probability of ranking on the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) for the same keywords.

Okay, so you might be asking yourself: is it really that easy? Well, as usual, the devil’s in the details. We’ll go through the steps you need to take in order to successfully create a skyscraper article. 

How To Make The Skyscraper Technique Work For You Using SERPed Tools

Now that you know what skyscraping is all about, let’s get technical: what do you have to do in order to use the skyscraper technique for SEO – and increase your traffic? In this section, we’ll explain how to make skyscraping work for you using SERPed tools. 

1. Find Skyscraping Opportunities

To find the ideal article to try this technique, we recommend using SERPed’s Ultimate Research tool. 

First of all, on the Tools menu, select Ultimate Research.

This will show you the list of previous searches. In order to search for a new keyword, click the blue “+” button at the top right.

We recommend using a keyword that’s highly specific to your niche. In this case, we went with “skyscraping”, for obvious reasons.

To start your search, click the big Search Keyword button. On the results page, you’ll see similar keywords. In order to find article ideas for each keyword, click on the three-dot button at the right of each result.

Then, select Launch Keyword Analyzer from the menu that appears.

This option will open a menu with a few important metrics for the keyword.

Scroll down and you’ll see a few websites that rank for that keyword:

Check each of these websites on the list for the usual metrics: Alexa Rank, Moz Rank, Domain Authority, Page Authority… Once you have taken a look at the articles, we recommend checking the backlink profile for each page. To find these backlinks, click on Backlink Explorer on the Tools menu, under SEO Analysis.

Once you open that tool, you’ll see a list of previous searches. To start a new backlink profile check, simply click on the blue “+” button at the top right.

On the next window, you get to choose to see the backlinks for a single site or a competitor analysis using Backlink Gaps. Since we already have a single URL to use (the one from the original article), we’ll pick the first option: Single Site.

Then, paste the URL you want to check:

Now, click on the Explore Backlinks button.

The result will be a list of the backlinks for that article, and you can filter them by Citation Flow, Trust Flow, or the anchor text. It takes a while to analyze all the results, but you can export them using the option Export To .CSV by clicking on the three-dot button on the top of the list:

Exporting the file to .CSV will enable you to segment the links according to the values of each field, making it easier to spot the backlinks you should go after.

2. Create New Content

It’s not always easy to create new content, especially if you are competing for the first spot on SERPs. There are many ways of creating new material for a well-known subject, but they all fall within four categories: 

• Length. If the average article is 1000 words or less, write 1200 words. If it lists 20 items, list 50, and so on.
• Depth. If there is a way to go into more detail, go for it.
• Design. If the text can be summed up in an infographic for easier interpretation, why not?
• Freshness. If the article has been written a while ago and is no longer up to date, create fresh content by updating the information that was available before.

This does not mean that by following the four categories, the article is going to land you the first spot on Google SERPs. It also does not imply that you have to do all this in order to create your masterpiece. You should put a lot of effort into every article you create, but remember that content for SEO is both a science and an art.

Another tip is to check your other competitors to get a feel of what is working or not. Don’t just use one article as a source; check out what is out there and match your search intent and subject with the different content available.

This also works for your old blog content; a way to repurpose old material is to join two different articles that are incomplete by themselves but fit together perfectly. This is a great way to give your old content a new life. 

3. Reach Out For Possible Backlinks

This is the bit that can make or break your skyscraper technique for SEO. 

A great part of your time spent on this technique is selecting the ideal websites to request backlinks from. First and foremost, go after the authority links from the article you selected in the first step. 

Authority links have a higher Citation Flow and Trust Flow (metrics from Majestic, but you can check them using SERPed as we mentioned above). Of course, some backlinks seem suspicious immediately, especially if they’re in a different language from the original source content and the anchor text reads weird. 

Once you have your list of the ideal websites to ask for backlinks, you need to contact the webmasters. For these contacts, the right message is essential.

When crafting your email messages to send to website owners, make sure you personalize each message accordingly. Don’t just create a template and replace the name of the person you’re contacting. 

We recommend taking a look at your backlink prospects’ profiles on LinkedIn, check other articles they published that are related to your subject… Make sure you know enough about the person you are getting in touch with. 

The biggest mistake when contacting website owners is approaching everyone with the same email content. Every webmaster has different goals and points of view, and you need to respect that – this is the best thing you can do to make sure your outreach efforts are successful. 

Wrapping Up

There’s a lot more to be said about the skyscraper technique, but this is only a short guide that will help you start using skyscraping for SEO. 

It’s not easy to reach the top when it comes to SERPs, but it is possible. Nonetheless, it’s not something that happens overnight, so we advise you to be patient and keep on improving your content. 

We’ll soon have another article that will help you improve your old blog posts, which will also help you climb up the rankings. 

If you have any questions, or would like to add something to this guide, feel free to use the comment section below or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. 

The post The Skyscraper Technique – A Quick Guide appeared first on Serped.com.