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.
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