Membership Overview
Learn what being a member does for you
The Seller Styles
NASP Programs
Catalog
See a summary of all our programs and certifications
Online Certifications
Certified Professional Sales Person(CPSP®)
Develop your potential as a certified sales professional
Certified Professional Sales Leader(CPSL®)
Grow your impact as a certified sales leader
Certified Master Sales Professional (CMSP®)
Join the elite group of sales professionals and leaders
Certified Master Sales Trainer (CMST®)
Online Programs
Advanced Sales Influence (ASI)
Take your influence and leadership to the next level.
Certified Professional Sales Associate (CPSA®)
Learn foundational sales behaviors, strategies, and skills
Power of Contact Marketing
Learn from marketing expert and author Stu Heinecke
ProSeries Programs
Join the top 1% of sales professionals in the world.
Next Level Virtual Coaching
Sales Mastery
Join our ongoing dynamic virtual coaching community
Career Center
Explore job postings from some of the best companies in the country looking for sales professionals
Training Resources
Daily Dose of Influence!
Enjoy our video series of influence tips and strategies
Leads To Growth
Dig into our podcast featuring industry leaders and experts
Coaches Corner
Learn from our high-level sales coaching video series
Women of Sales & Influence – Facebook Live Series
Be inspired by our Facebook Live series spotlighting top women influencers
Women of Sales & Influence – Video Blog
Enjoy valuable, high-level sales strategies to empower your sales goals
Sales Resources
The Growth Quotient
You’ve heard about IQ, but what is your GQ?
Our Commitment to You
We are here to help your approach to sales, how you interact with others, and how you perform and execute
Articles
NASP Sales Blog
Learn from our member-submitted articles for sales professionals
About Our CEO
Standards of Conduct
Testimonials
Common Questions and Answers
Contact
by Renu Sharma
It’s common knowledge that SEO is crucial for attracting relevant traffic to a website. On its own, however, it doesn’t have much impact on what those visitors do after they land on your site. Will they convert or will they leave? That’s why you need to align your SEO efforts with content marketing if you want to drive more sales for your business.
In a way, content marketing and SEO are closely interrelated. They both need each other to deliver a bigger impact and an all-round benefit for your business. Here are three ways to use SEO-driven content marketing to increase sales:
It’s much easier to speak into your phone than to type something. Especially when you’re in the middle of something. So it’s no surprise that voice search is becoming even more popular. Realizing this, companies are developing and enhancing voice search technology to make life simpler for consumers.
But people who use voice search aren’t just using it for fun or to get answers to their questions. They are also using it to make online purchases. In fact, a study by Edison Research found that 22% of people who own a smart speaker have used it to order a new product they hadn’t purchased before.
Another 22% also use it to reorder products they have purchased in the past. 29% use it to research products they might want to buy, while 31% use it to add products to their cart so they can review them later.
What this means is that if you boost your rankings in voice search results, there’s a good chance you’ll attract people who are interested in making a purchase. This can then increase your sales. If you want your content to be prominently visible among these search results, you will need to optimize it for voice search.
So you’ll need to have a better understanding of natural speech patterns. Instead of using short and generic keywords, focus on long-tail keywords that people are more likely to use when they speak. Identify the common phrases and questions people would likely use when they conduct a voice search for your content or product.
Answer the Public is a very helpful tool that will help you discover the questions people are asking and the phrases they are searching for. Collect some of the most-searched queries related to a particular keyword and use them to brainstorm content ideas. Perhaps you could put together a how-to blog post using those keywords or create a product FAQ section.
Video is a very entertaining visual content format, which brands can leverage to better market their products. In fact, a HubSpot study found that it was the most preferred content format among consumers. 54% of consumers in their study would like to see videos from the brands or businesses they support.
It’s not just that; videos actually inspire people to engage with a brand and buy their products. According to a Nielsen study,people who watched three seconds of a video ad had a 44% higher purchase intent. And people who watched 10 seconds of the video ad had a 74% higher purchase intent. Video ads also have a similar impact on brand awareness and ad recall.
This gives you a clear idea of how watching a video about a product makes people more likely to purchase the product. What this suggests is that creating and promoting videos and boosting their visibility in search engines could eventually drive more conversions for your brand.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Moz always includes a video transcription of their Whiteboard Friday video series.
Check out how Neil Patel’s video thumbnail includes his face along with some graphics and text to fit the topic of the video.
User-generated content plays a critical role in both SEO and content marketing. It is an authentic and relatable content format, so it can also help you win the trust of prospective buyers. Using it can significantly boost your conversions, as it involves real people advocating for your brand.
Besides this, user-generated content such as reviews tends to contain a lot of long-tail keywords and natural speech patterns. This is very useful when search engines crawl your web pages to rank you for relevant search queries. This adds to the fact that getting new reviews can automatically translate into fresh content for your product pages.
Encourage your customers to review your products by sending them reminder emails every now and then. Some brands even go so far as to offer rewards in exchange for reviews. If you have a loyalty program, you could offer loyalty points in exchange for a review. Or you could offer a limited period discount or offer.
You can also collect customer reviews through social media. Give your customers a unique hashtag and ask them to share their thoughts and images about your product using that hashtag. You can then curate those submissions and repost them on your social media profiles. You could even feature them on your website on relevant product pages or on a dedicated page for user-generated content.
Pura Vida does a great job of this. They curate user-submitted photos from Instagram and include a “Styled on Instagram” section for each product page. They also highlight their best customer reviews on important web pages like their monthly subscription page.
These are some of the best ways to combine your SEO and content marketing efforts to drive sales. As you can see, these tactics aren’t just solely SEO or solely content marketing. They involve both, to compliment one another. They can help you improve your brand and content visibility while driving more engagement that can eventually lead to sales.
Got any questions or ideas to share about these tips? Let me know in the comments below.
About the author