00:00:05
Hi everyone. This is Josh Miller, and welcome
to another Stukent Expert Session.
00:00:09
Today, we are super excited to have Mitch
Causey, director of marketing at Lessonly.
00:00:13
Mitch has worked in SEO strategy for seven
years, leading teams of SEO
00:00:17
experts and helping a variety of small and
large businesses grow their
00:00:22
online sales, including many Fortune 100
companies.
00:00:25
Today, he is going to teach us how to use
search intent to focus on SEO strategies
00:00:30
that lead to actual revenue, not just views.
00:00:33
Now, without further ado, Mitch, the time is
yours.
00:00:36
Well, thanks so much for that introduction.
00:00:38
I'm excited to be with you guys today.
00:00:41
Today, we're going to talk about searcher
intent and what I've
00:00:45
seen, how to use that to predict content
marketing
00:00:48
success. So as you just heard, again, my
name is Mitch
00:00:52
Causey, senior director of marketing at a
company called Lessonly.
00:00:58
Joined Lessonly as the third employee, and
now we're well over 80.
00:01:02
It's been quite a ride for the last four
years.
00:01:06
If you ever join a startup and have any
questions, would
00:01:10
love to help you out and really navigate
that process.
00:01:15
Let's get into it.
00:01:16
Today, we've got a quick agenda.
00:01:19
We're going to talk about how what we talk
about today applies no
00:01:23
matter what the scale of company.
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I'm going to give you a quick overview of
ACE, which is a methodology I've
00:01:30
come up with around SEO, search engine
optimization, to help you rank
00:01:34
better in Google.
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We're going to talk about why SEO should be
added to creativity
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in the content marketing process.
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We're going to talk about understanding
searcher intent.
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We are going to map that searcher intent to
content.
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And then finally, we're going to talk about
using that intent, plus some
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research around search volume and how that
equals
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success. And I'm, I'm going to give you
three quick examples of
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how that has shaken out here at Lessonly.
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So let's get into it.
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The first thing is that what we talk about
today,
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scales. And what I mean by that is no matter
what size of
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company you are a part of and applying this
to, it
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just, it just works.
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And when you don't consider searcher intent,
you
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don't do as well with content marketing, no
matter how big of a company
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you are. And so what I've, so these are all
companies that you see on here.
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You know, I assume you've heard of FedEx and
Sears.
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Some that you haven't heard of are small,
smaller mom and pop shops, like Valley
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Vista is a small local company here in
Indiana.
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It's a, it's a wedding venue.
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Then you've got LoopNet who's got, you know,
literally
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millions and millions of pages across their
website.
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They're based out of San Francisco.
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And then, you know, Lessonly. Like I said,
we were three people.
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We had a single page on our website.
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And then we've grown all the way up to
hundreds of
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pages on our website with like 100,000
people visiting our
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website each month.
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And then obviously FedEx and Sears, tens of
thousands of employees that work there and
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millions of pages on their site.
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You take a look at all of those companies.
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And again, what we talk about today doesn't
matter what size of
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company. Also does not matter the industry.
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What we talk about today is so crucial for
your content marketing
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success. So let's take a
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quick, quick second to back out a little bit
to kind of that
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3,000-foot view of search engine
optimization.
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SEO is incredibly important.
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I'm going to hopefully prove that to you
here in a second.
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But just wanted to fill you guys in on a
quick way that I
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remember how to do well in search engine
optimization, and that is this word
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called ACE.
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I've kind of organized the different ways
that Google looks at your website into three
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buckets. The first is architecture, second
is content, and the third is
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endorsements. Architecture includes things
like an HTML site
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map or how quickly your page loads on
mobile.
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Really, really nerdy things, but really
important.
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Content I think is the most obvious one.
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Those are things like blog posts.
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Any, any written word copy that's on your
website.
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Ebooks, white papers, all that stuff.
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And then finally, endorsements.
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And endorsements are third party websites
that
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link back to your website.
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All three of those categories are really
important.
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They can make or break your entire SEO
success.
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And so what I like to say is, you know, if
you, if you have all of the ingredients of
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ACE doing well in your soup,
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that is your website, then it's going to
taste really, really good.
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If you do poorly on one or only focus on
one,
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then it's not going to taste as well.
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And that means less traffic to your website
and less business,
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less revenue for your business.
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And so if what you, if what we talk about
today
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is super interesting to you, please hit me
up.
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I would love to chat with you more about
digging into each of these
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buckets. But, that's a lot to cover for a
20-minute
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or so presentation.
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And so what we're going to do today, and the
searcher intent topic is really a
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drill-down into content.
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How do you come up with the content that you
should write and
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publish on your website?
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Before we get there, I want to talk really
quickly
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about how SEO success yields
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traffic to your website, and eventually that
traffic turns into
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revenue for your company.
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This is, you know, again, why?
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Why should you care about SEO?
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I know it's, it's, SEO is a buzzword.
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A lot of people talk about it, but it's not,
you shouldn't care about
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it just because everyone's talking about it.
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I think everyone's talking about it, because
it really, really works.
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And so hopefully in this example I show you,
you will
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agree. The problem
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that I see and the problem why I came up
with this
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presentation and this topic in the first
place is that what
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happens all of the time, and unfortunately,
you
00:06:52
know, even happens at Lessonly is marketing
teams love to be
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creative. And so when we ask ourselves, what
content should we
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write? We lock ourselves into a meeting
room,
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and we quote unquote brainstorm really
creative
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ideas. And we say, wow, that sounds really
good.
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Let's write that.
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And we write it.
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We package it up into an e-book.
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And no one cares.
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They don't care, because they're not finding
it in Google and they don't
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even know that you exist.
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Let's look at one example of two different
companies.
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And I think this should become a little bit
more clear to you.
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First one is this company called
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Galaxus. I assume none of you have heard of
them.
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I had never.
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But they are an online retailer.
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They have, and they sell shoes.
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I've actually never owned a pair of ASICs
shoes, but
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this company sells them, and I know that
they're good quality shoes and a lot of
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people that have worn them.
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So they've got a good product, but no one's
heard of them.
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And can back that up with data.
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There's this website called Alexa.
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Google it.
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You'll see they have a ranking algorithm
that basically
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says, how much traffic does this website
get?
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This website right here is ranked at
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15,000. We'll see one here
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in a minute that is ranked 1,000.
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At 15,000, they are actually
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on the 10th page of Google.
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And that's how I found them.
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I Googled running shoes and
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went all the way to the last page of Google,
at least to the 10th page of
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Google. And that's how I found them.
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So the reality is, and everyone knows this,
and I'm sure
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you have experienced this, no one goes to
the last page of Google.
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No one goes to page ten unless you are like
just absolutely dying to
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find that one thing.
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You just don't do that. And so you don't get
a lot of traffic.
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And so probably you have not heard of or
bought anything from this
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company Galaxus.
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Let's talk about Zappos, though.
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Right? We've all heard of Zappos.
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And what do they do?
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They are a shoe store.
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And look at that.
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The second shoe is ASICs.
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They've got the same product.
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There's really, if you were to compare these
two sites, there's really not a
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ton that makes a big difference.
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So why do they have an Alexa rank
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of 1,000 compared to 15,000 of Galaxus?
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Well, it's because they're on page one of
Google.
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We know that the higher up on Google you
are,
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the more traffic you're going to, you're
going to get.
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And so I'm not saying that because they rank
number one in Google
00:10:05
is the reason why Zappos is so successful.
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But, I do think it's a contributing factor.
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And if you get so much more
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literally 15 times more traffic, you're
going to probably get
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15 times more revenue.
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So it's really important to draw that direct
correlation between
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ranking well in Google
00:10:28
and creating revenue for your company.
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Let's talk now about searcher intent.
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Hopefully you agree that you should rank
really well in Google.
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But the question is, what do you want to
rank well
00:10:46
for? And my, my
00:10:51
whole spiel for this conversation is that
you should
00:10:55
consider searcher intent when you are
brainstorming
00:11:01
to write to that next piece of content and
do some data
00:11:05
driven research.
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Add that into your creative conversation to
get
00:11:11
the best, best of both worlds.
00:11:14
So let's talk about searcher intent.
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I've been saying it a lot so far in this
presentation,
00:11:20
but what does it actually mean?
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Well, it has everything to do with the
marketing funnel
00:11:27
and what I call the intent funnel.
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You've probably seen this.
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I hope you have.
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If you haven't, I would do a lot more
research on this.
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It is, in my opinion, one of the most
critical parts about making
00:11:42
a successful marketing program work.
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It is represented by the inverted triangle
that you see on the right side of the
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screen. It's got three parts.
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Super simple.
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Top, middle, and bottom of the intent
funnel.
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And I hope by describing each of the parts
of the funnel,
00:12:04
you'll, you'll start to understand what I
mean when we're
00:12:08
talking about searcher intent.
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So the idea here is that everyone searching
for something
00:12:14
in Google can be found in one of these three
buckets.
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And how do you figure that out?
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Well, let's talk about each one
individually, and then we will talk
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about how to connect what you can infer
about
00:12:29
a search and how you can connect that
00:12:33
to the content that you need to build.
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So first things first, let's talk about the
top.
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We'll talk through three different parts of
each of the three
00:12:43
parts. The first one is purchase intent.
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So at the top of the funnel, which is
usually the largest part of the
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funnel, no one's really looking to exchange
money.
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There's not a lot of...
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People who search for things in this area
are not,
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not looking to buy a certain product.
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They are looking to understand a certain
product.
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There is in terms of traffic volume, there's
a lot of activity going
00:13:14
on here. And I recommend writing about
definitions,
00:13:19
tips, and ideas.
00:13:21
Another way to describe this is with an
example.
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So this quote, I've heard
00:13:32
about electric cars, but I have to be
convinced that I need one.
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So this is someone who is Googling something
like
00:13:43
electric car.
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Or ideas on how
00:13:49
electric cars will change the world.
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Things like that. There's no, you can't
expect these people to be buying
00:13:55
anything in a, in a near-term time
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frame. So I read the middle.
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The middle, the purchase intent is medium.
00:14:07
So they're often talking about
00:14:12
often looking for comparisons.
00:14:15
They are, they're not necessarily going to
buy in the next
00:14:20
seven days, but maybe the next 30 days.
00:14:24
Traffic volume, it's, it's a smaller amount
of individuals.
00:14:28
It's a smaller activity pool.
00:14:31
And I recommend writing about
differentiation.
00:14:34
What makes you different than your
competitors?
00:14:37
As well as comparisons of, you know, this
00:14:41
is what we do, this is what our competitors
do, here's how they're
00:14:45
different, etc.
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So the quote for this part of the funnel is
that I'm interested in
00:14:52
buying an electric car, but I have no clue
which one I should buy.
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So again, it might be someone who is looking
to buy
00:15:01
one, let's say the next 30 days, maybe even
the next 90 days.
00:15:05
But they're just really not sure exactly
which one they
00:15:09
should buy. So when you're writing for
someone in this funnel
00:15:13
stage, you should convince them that your
product,
00:15:18
in this case, your electric car, is the one
that they should buy.
00:15:23
Finally, let's talk about the bottom.
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Purchase intent is very high.
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These people are very much ready to purchase
a
00:15:31
product, but there's a lot lower
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volume of those people.
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It's very few people that are, are actually
searching
00:15:42
these types of words when compared to the
other two
00:15:46
parts of the funnel.
00:15:48
And I typically recommend writing about
incentives
00:15:53
and answering the question, why now?
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If someone's going to buy and they already
believe
00:16:00
that you are the best product, because you
did a good job in the
00:16:04
middle of the funnel telling them that yours
is the right one out of the
00:16:08
comparison, now they should understand why
now.
00:16:11
So why should you buy today or this week
instead
00:16:15
of a month from now or two months from now?
00:16:20
Example, quote for the people here is that,
I think a
00:16:25
Tesla is the car for me.
00:16:27
Where, when, and how can I buy one?
00:16:31
And if you're Tesla, if you're selling
Tesla, you need to make sure that you can
00:16:35
very clearly answer each of those questions
in the content that you
00:16:39
write. At a high level,
00:16:43
it's really important to make sure that you
are covering
00:16:48
all three parts of the funnel.
00:16:51
And one way that I like to do that, to make
sure
00:16:56
that you are covering every part of the
funnel and
00:17:00
to understand which parts of the funnel you
need to write about next, because maybe
00:17:04
you're not covering them as well, is when
you
00:17:08
map your content and keywords to
00:17:12
search your intent.
00:17:14
So I've done, what I've done here is I've
got a B2C example and a
00:17:19
B2B example.
00:17:20
So business to consumer, business to
business.
00:17:23
It's super important to understand, you
know, the difference between those
00:17:27
two for when you're writing content, because
it does make a difference
00:17:32
in the types of content that you're writing.
00:17:34
So I'll go through both of these examples
briefly.
00:17:39
And as you can see on this first one, so we
go through
00:17:43
B2C first.
00:17:44
You can see our friendly funnel in the
background, the top, middle, and
00:17:48
bottom. And you'll see this a list of
categories of
00:17:52
keywords. I did not make any of these
keywords up.
00:17:57
These are all keywords that Google told me
about
00:18:01
using what is called the Google AdWords
keyword
00:18:05
planner. I'll show you a screenshot of that
at the very end of this
00:18:09
conversation. But suffice it to say, Google
told me that people
00:18:14
are actually searching for all of these
things.
00:18:16
And what they give them, they give them to
you in just a very
00:18:20
unorganized list.
00:18:21
And so what I've done, and what I recommend
you doing, is
00:18:26
gathering your list of keywords that Google
tells you to use
00:18:30
and organizing them based on the top,
middle,
00:18:35
and low-ish parts of the funnel that you can
infer
00:18:40
based on what, what you read people
searching for.
00:18:44
So, for example, educational keywords.
00:18:48
Like if you're selling cameras, like SLR
camera
00:18:53
versus DSLR camera.
00:18:55
Or DSLR for beginners.
00:18:57
These people searching for these keywords,
it's
00:19:02
very easy to infer that it's probably not a
professional
00:19:06
photographer who knows what they're looking
for and who's ready to buy.
00:19:10
Right? Like we talked about.
00:19:11
They're high in the funnel.
00:19:13
They have a very low likelihood of
purchasing in a
00:19:17
near-term, but they are interested in your
product.
00:19:23
We've got in the B2C space a lot of
situation-specific
00:19:27
type of searches, like best camera
00:19:31
for professional photography.
00:19:32
So maybe that's someone who's entering the
professional market and is looking
00:19:37
for which one is, which one is the best.
00:19:40
That's somewhere in between the top and the
middle of the funnel.
00:19:44
As I mentioned, you know, middle of the
funnel.
00:19:46
We've got comparison shopping, best DSLR
Camera
00:19:50
2017. That means someone is looking more or
less
00:19:55
to buy in a relatively near time frame,
00:19:59
but they don't know which one that they
should buy.
00:20:03
Once they are convinced, right?
00:20:05
Or in the middle of that comparison
shopping, they might dive deeper into
00:20:10
brand-specific searches.
00:20:12
So as you can see, their DSLR camera Canon or
Nikon.
00:20:16
They're comparing the two to figure out
which one they want to go
00:20:20
with. Near the bottom, you've got
00:20:24
SLR camera price and DSLR camera cheap.
00:20:28
When you start talking about money, that
probably means you
00:20:32
are ready to buy or you're almost ready to
buy.
00:20:36
You don't need a lot more convincing.
00:20:38
You're just looking for the best, best
price.
00:20:42
And then finally, very bottom of the funnel
for the B2C
00:20:46
space is someone looking for a vendor.
00:20:48
So DSLR Camera, Amazon.
00:20:50
And if you add some of these together, you
can get really, really, really
00:20:55
specific. So if someone said professional
DSLR
00:21:00
camera Canon, best price
00:21:03
Amazon, the more you add together and kind
of lump
00:21:07
together, that is someone who is looking for
something very specific.
00:21:11
They know exactly what they want.
00:21:13
They know how they're going to use it.
00:21:15
They're looking for the best price.
00:21:16
And they know where they're going to buy it
from.
00:21:18
That is like a dream in terms of a, a
00:21:22
search keyword.
00:21:24
But, if you, if you hear what I just said,
that's a
00:21:28
lot of words.
00:21:29
And people don't typically type in a lot of
words
00:21:34
a lot of the time. And so that's why the
shape of the funnel
00:21:38
gets smaller and smaller and smaller as you
go down the funnel.
00:21:43
Let's walk through B2B really quickly as
well.
00:21:46
So in the B2B world, you're talking a lot
about ideas and
00:21:51
categories more than you are specific
products.
00:21:54
So, for example, this is, you know, kind of
the funnel that
00:21:58
we use here at Lessonly, because we are, you
know, an online
00:22:03
training software that helps sales and
customer
00:22:07
service teams grow and, you know, understand
what
00:22:12
they need to at their company to be
successful and do better work.
00:22:16
So for us at the high end of the funnel are
things like training
00:22:20
methodologies and the importance of employee
training.
00:22:24
You know, at this point this might be
someone
00:22:28
in a company that doesn't, isn't necessarily
looking
00:22:33
to buy training software right now, but they
are looking to become
00:22:37
better at training or even just
understanding
00:22:42
the point of training and how it can help
them in their company.
00:22:46
Next up are software categories.
00:22:48
This is... I would say, like, the most
search volume that
00:22:52
exists in B2B products is software
categories.
00:22:56
It's crazy.
00:22:58
So for us, we fit into a few, such as online
training
00:23:02
software, learning management systems,
really like industry lingo that
00:23:07
only people in our industry would actually
understand.
00:23:11
And so a lot of people will be
00:23:15
in this category. If they are getting into
an industry, trying to understand
00:23:20
what software solutions are out there, that
actually would make sense to
00:23:24
help me do better at this specific job task
in my
00:23:28
business. Next, you've got specific
downloads.
00:23:33
For us, which we'll get to here in a minute,
is a training plan
00:23:38
template. Is super, super important for us.
00:23:40
And the great thing about downloads is that
what you, what you
00:23:45
can do is you can actually use that as an
opportunity to move someone down the
00:23:49
funnel. So that's another really important
thing to consider as you are
00:23:54
considering content.
00:23:56
Funnel-based content based on the intent is
understanding
00:24:00
where someone currently is in the funnel and
how you
00:24:05
can take them to the next step in the
funnel.
00:24:08
And if you can do that well, you can lead to
many, many
00:24:12
customers. And so we have many, many
downloads on our
00:24:17
site. And kind of the point of those is to
take someone who's
00:24:21
potentially in the middle of the funnel,
high-to-middle of the
00:24:25
funnel with, with just searching for
training plan template.
00:24:28
They're looking to improve training, but
they're, and they're looking for a tool,
00:24:33
but they don't necessarily know software is
out there for it.
00:24:36
And what we do is we, we introduce software
in that
00:24:41
plan template so that they're more
interested and more ready to
00:24:45
buy sooner than later.
00:24:48
Next up, we've got competitor comparisons.
00:24:51
So Lessonly versus competitor X.
00:24:53
Or best online training software, very
similar to how B2C
00:24:57
operates. And then lastly, you've got
pricing.
00:25:00
And, you know, for that, for that realm,
it's like brand
00:25:05
name and pricing.
00:25:07
Or brand name and discount.
00:25:10
You know, again, on B2C, it's like brand
name and coupon code.
00:25:14
Things like that. And those are, if you are,
if you were to
00:25:18
compare the number of people searching for
training methodologies, which we
00:25:23
know because we rank fairly well for that,
is thousands and thousands of people every
00:25:27
month. The people that search for Lessonly
pricing, on the other hand, is
00:25:31
maybe 500 to 1,000 a month.
00:25:36
So far fewer. Again, that's why the shape of
the funnel is what it is.
00:25:39
You can get a lot of interest at the top of
the funnel,
00:25:44
a lot less interest at the bottom of the
funnel.
00:25:47
And how those two pieces connect is super,
super
00:25:52
important. You need to always be
00:25:55
writing content that fills the gaps of the
funnel again.
00:26:01
If I were you, I would go through the
content you have on your website
00:26:05
and map it to the top, middle, and bottom
parts of the
00:26:09
funnel and see where you're lacking.
00:26:12
I also typically recommend starting at the
bottom and moving upwards,
00:26:16
because at the bottom, although you'll get
less traffic,
00:26:20
that traffic will convert into revenue at a
higher rate, because those
00:26:24
people are so interested in
00:26:27
purchasing your product.
00:26:32
Okay. So like I mentioned, top of the
funnel, there's a lot
00:26:36
of volume.
00:26:38
Bottom of the funnel, there's a little
volume.
00:26:41
Top of the funnel is very low purchase
intent.
00:26:46
Bottom of the funnel, very high purchase
intent.
00:26:49
So, at a high level, the top of
00:26:54
the funnel is going to get you a lot of
traffic and little revenue.
00:26:58
The bottom of the funnel is going to get
very little traffic, but most of your revenue
00:27:03
is going to come from there, and that's why
you kind of have to play the full
00:27:07
funnel and help people move from where
they're at in the
00:27:11
funnel to where you want them to be, which
is the next step.
00:27:15
So if they're in the top, try to convince
them to move to the middle.
00:27:18
If they're in the middle, try to convince
them to move to the bottom.
00:27:22
If you can find that right balance of intent
and volume, that
00:27:27
is where the real success in content
marketing comes
00:27:31
from. And so I want to share three real-life
examples from the Lessonly
00:27:35
website that I've experienced over the last
four years and continue to be
00:27:39
true over and over and over again.
00:27:43
So, we've talked a lot about intent.
00:27:46
This is going to be a two-part graph.
00:27:48
So intent and interest.
00:27:50
Focusing on intent really quick, if it's at
the top of the graph, that means there's a
00:27:54
lot of purchase intent there.
00:27:56
Ready to buy.
00:27:57
Bottom of the graph means that there's low
purchase intent.
00:28:00
They're not going to buy any time soon.
00:28:03
When we add interest in here, on the right,
that means
00:28:09
that there is, that there is a ton of search
volume.
00:28:13
And on the left that means that there's not
a lot of search volume.
00:28:17
So not a lot of people searching in Google
for this
00:28:21
particular keyword.
00:28:23
Ideally, you will find keywords to target
and
00:28:28
your search engine optimization efforts that
are somewhere in that top
00:28:32
right quadrant.
00:28:33
They have a high level of intent.
00:28:36
They also have enough interest or volume
to, you
00:28:40
know, make a difference for your business.
00:28:44
So let's walk through three examples on this
chart.
00:28:47
The first one is a blog post.
00:28:49
We had an intern write a blog post one time.
00:28:52
She actually wrote, I don't know, maybe 20
or 30 blog posts for
00:28:57
us. Most of them did fairly well, but one of
them just
00:29:00
absolutely crushed it in terms
00:29:04
of traffic.
00:29:07
So this one blog posts.
00:29:09
And pretty much if you're searching Google
for anything around self performance reviews,
00:29:14
we show up. It's kind of comical at this
point.
00:29:17
It gets about 40,000 page views a month.
00:29:22
For a website like ours in the B2B space,
that is a lot
00:29:26
for a single blog post.
00:29:28
So it is very, very high on the
00:29:32
interest scale.
00:29:34
But what we've found is that it's typically
people
00:29:38
who are individual contributors in a company
that are not
00:29:43
looking to train their employees better, but
are actually just filling
00:29:47
out a self-performance review and want
inspiration for that.
00:29:50
So in terms of purchase intent, it is very,
very,
00:29:55
very low.
00:29:56
So bottom right.
00:29:58
That means we get a lot of traffic, but zero
clients.
00:30:03
Next up is a buyer's guide.
00:30:06
So it's this learning software buyer's
guide.
00:30:11
It doesn't get much more purchase intent
heavy than
00:30:15
that. This is, this means I am looking to
purchase.
00:30:20
And I'm looking for help if I'm searching
for a
00:30:24
learning software buyer's guide.
00:30:27
Well, it turns out there is very, very, very
little
00:30:31
interest in that.
00:30:32
Not a lot of people are looking for that.
00:30:35
It gets about 100 page views a month.
00:30:37
And we also, from that, got zero clients.
00:30:41
So we're kind of looking at two ends of the
spectrum here, right?
00:30:44
We are looking at getting zero clients from
a lot of
00:30:48
traffic and zero clients from a little
traffic on
00:30:53
two very ends of the spectrum.
00:30:55
Two very ends of the funnel.
00:31:00
Well, there is a happy medium, and that's
what I suggest to you.
00:31:04
Hunting for testing and finding, because it
has made a
00:31:08
world of difference for us.
00:31:11
And for us, that is the training plan
template.
00:31:14
I know I talked about it a little bit
earlier.
00:31:17
That gets about 1600 page views
00:31:21
per month.
00:31:23
So when compared to 100 page views a month,
honestly isn't
00:31:27
that much more.
00:31:29
I mean, it's 16 times more.
00:31:31
But still, you know, that's really not a ton
of page views a month,
00:31:36
especially when compared to 40,000 page
views a month.
00:31:39
But that template alone has led to eight
plus
00:31:44
clients. And the reason why I say plus and
it's not an exact science is
00:31:48
that that has directly sourced.
00:31:52
So people had never heard of us before.
00:31:54
They searched for a training plan template.
00:31:57
Often, you know, variations like employee
training, plan template, and, you
00:32:02
know, stuff like that.
00:32:04
That's led to eight different companies that
had never heard of us.
00:32:07
Came to our website, downloaded that, learned
from
00:32:12
it, and we used it to push them into
00:32:17
even greater purchase intent and close them
for
00:32:23
revenue for our company.
00:32:25
The reason why I say plus and why it's, you
know, a little hazy is that
00:32:29
that piece of content is
00:32:33
used all of the time in our sales process as
well,
00:32:38
and that also helps push people
00:32:42
who have already heard about us from our
sales team
00:32:46
and push them down the funnel and into
revenue
00:32:51
for us as well.
00:32:53
So it's, it, when you get that great piece
of content that's a
00:32:57
balance in between purchase intent and
interest, it doesn't
00:33:01
only have to help out the marketing team, it
can also help out the
00:33:05
sales team as they're working to close
deals.
00:33:09
So, that's what I've seen about purchase
intent.
00:33:14
Depending on what someone is searching, if
you can rank really well for
00:33:18
that keyword.
00:33:20
And it is the right balance between intent
and interest.
00:33:24
That's when you can make a lot of money and
drive a lot of
00:33:28
value to your company.
00:33:31
I've got one last tip for you.
00:33:33
I already referenced it earlier, but that is
to use the Google
00:33:37
AdWords keyword planner.
00:33:40
This tool is life changing.
00:33:43
And that is not an exaggeration.
00:33:46
And this is when it comes to that
brainstorming
00:33:51
session that I talked about earlier.
00:33:53
When you go into that meeting room as a team
and think
00:33:57
through, what are the really great ideas
that we have?
00:34:01
What I suggest doing first is actually using
the
00:34:06
keyword planner to start figuring out what
people are searching
00:34:10
for. The great thing about the keyword
planner is you can type in all sorts of ideas
00:34:14
of keywords or, you know,
00:34:18
categories of whatever your product is.
00:34:21
If, you know, in this example, if you're
selling DSLR cameras again,
00:34:26
you type in whatever variations of those
keywords you can think
00:34:30
of. You hit go.
00:34:32
And what it does is it tells you in a, in a
rough
00:34:35
estimate how many times per month something
is getting
00:34:39
searched. And so that is how you can figure
out
00:34:44
the level of interest and the, the amount of
search volume
00:34:49
that's coming from that specific keyword
before
00:34:53
you actually write it.
00:34:54
So, back to our, you know, back to our three
examples,
00:34:59
we could know...
00:35:00
Before writing any of this content, we could
know that
00:35:04
relative to each other, a Buyer's Guide for
learning
00:35:08
software, A Training Plan Template, and a
Self-Performance
00:35:12
Review Phrases Blog Post would have
00:35:17
roughly the same amount of traffic that we
see
00:35:20
here. Without writing or publishing a thing,
we just look at the
00:35:25
Google AdWords keyword planner, and it tells
you that.
00:35:29
So from a marketing perspective, I think we
should always be using
00:35:33
this data, adding this SEO
00:35:37
search intent, getting into the mind of the
person
00:35:42
searching what they're searching to
understand
00:35:47
exactly how often it's being searched
00:35:51
and what the likelihood is that this will
lead to
00:35:55
business, to revenue for our
00:35:59
business. The side effect
00:36:04
that I am absolutely in love with and is
literally one of my favorite parts of
00:36:08
marketing is that this tool gives you
insight into
00:36:12
how often and what people are searching for
in Google, which to
00:36:17
me is the greatest social experiment there's
ever been.
00:36:21
It's just so fascinating to go in there and
search for all kinds of things and just
00:36:25
see how, how often people are searching for
one thing
00:36:30
versus another. And I have, you know,
00:36:34
in the ten years that I've been doing
digital marketing,
00:36:39
I am still, still surprised at the
00:36:43
results that I see coming out of the keyword
planner.
00:36:47
It's a lot of fun. Definitely take a look.
00:36:50
For your sake, please add it to your
creative process when you're deciding what to
00:36:54
write. And consider the funnel, consider
what
00:36:59
you've currently got in the funnel and where
those gaps are and start writing
00:37:03
content for that.
00:37:05
Okay. That's all I've got for you today.
00:37:08
Thank you so much for your time.
00:37:10
It's been a pleasure chatting with you.
00:37:13
Feel free at any time.
00:37:15
I would love to connect with you.
00:37:17
My email is mitch@lessonly.com.
00:37:21
You can check Lessonly out more @lesson.ly
on
00:37:25
Instagram. Or if you want to connect with me
directly on
00:37:29
LinkedIn, you can see that URL there, and I
would love to connect with you there.
00:37:33
Thank you so much, and I hope you have a
great rest of your day.
