How Can You Begin To Rank In New Markets (Local, National, International) via @sejournal, @rollerblader

Today’s ask an SEO question comes from Mark:

“How can a small company that only ranks in its local markets begin to rank in another market? What would you do to help the small company rank in a new area?”

Great question, Mark! The good news is that the answer is fairly easy and can be applied to local, national, and international in the base strategy.

All three can also require foreign language versions, but that is for another post. I’ll give some hints in this one for that situation, though.

I’m going to cover the basics of getting SEO traffic in new markets here, making the assumption it is regional vs. new products, and then share some tips specific to local, national, and international.

Google Business Profile (GBP)

If you’re local or have a national footprint, when you expand, make sure to update your area served or serviced by location. This link goes to Google’s guide for how to use a service area.

Make sure to keep your hours up-to-date on the website, landing page, and on your GBP.

This helps the search engines to understand where you’re now offering services, what your footprint is, and when customers can access your offerings.

You can also launch new profiles for new locations. Just make sure you verify ownership for each one and keep them up-to-date. This includes holiday hours and closings.

Schema

Do you have service area or organization schema on your site or pages? Make sure to fill out and update the “area served” fields by referencing Wikipedia or Wikipedia’s entries.

Wikidata has almost every city, county, state, country, and region to help you define where your products, services, stores, etc., are located.

The more you can help the search engines know where you offer services, and the hours you offer them, the better job they can do at showing you as a provider to people in those markets.

Do you offer services in all of North America (US, Mexico, Canada)? There’s a page for that, too. This way, you don’t have to reference all three.

But something really weird here is that Wikidata includes “Greenland” as North America.

That’s definitely not accurate for your locations, although it is technically part of the continent (geographically). Politically, Greenland is part of the EU, as it is currently a territory of Denmark.

Here’s a screenshot of the page with a date stamp. This likely wouldn’t impact your ability to rank, so don’t second-guess yourself here.

I’m using this as an example because it could be confusing as to why you may reference this page when you don’t offer services in Greenland.

Screenshot from Wikidata, January 2023

Localize Or Regionalize Your Titles And Descriptions

Meta descriptions are not a ranking signal or used in rankings – at least, that’s my opinion – though they do influence how many people click through to your site. But only when a search engine uses the meta descriptions you create.

Title tags, however, do move the needle, based on my experience, when combined with other on-page elements.

When the description reinforces the region or market the title displays for, you create an enticing ad for a consumer to click on.

And meta descriptions are vital.

If you are optimizing for tourists and mention you’re right by a specific landmark, they will know you’re close to their location and may click on your listing over another business higher up that shares generic titles and descriptions.

This can work for retailers, pharmacies, restaurants, housing or car rentals, etc. Here’s a guide I created for writing localized meta descriptions and title tags.

Build Citations And Do PR Work

This one is a double win! Look up local blogs, newspapers, and magazines, then focus on getting featured and mentioned.

By being featured, you can get referral traffic and customers to your business and signal to search engines you have a new local location or expansion. In some cases, you may get a backlink.

Whether the backlink is natural and good or not depends on the site linking to you and the type of link.

As an added bonus, if the new market you have moved into recognizes and trusts the media company’s brand, feature the logo on your page.

This may help build trust to increase conversions both online or for foot traffic if they’re deciding between two businesses to try.

If you were to expand into my city (Washington D.C.), focus on Washingtonian Magazine, Popville, or ARLnow. These could be recognizable by locals in our area.

Other Things To Pay Attention To

One thing to keep in mind when you expand your footprint is that demographics may change location by location.

You may find the new location has a different skew for race, religion, single vs. married, income levels, or age ranges. This means the way you market also needs modifying.

• If you offer new languages, make sure to check your hreflang tags so they reference the correct language version for products, services, and content. Here’s Google’s guide on this.
• Update the imagery to match the demographics of the customers who will be contacting you for services or visiting your location.
• Make sure the wording makes sense for their needs. If your original location is in a DINK-heavy area (dual income, no kids), and the new one has multiple elementary schools, mention the new location is kid-friendly or add in relevant promotions, e.g., “kids eat half price.” While you might do this for the kid-friendly location, keep the wording focused on relaxing, calm, quiet, and romantic for the DINK location.

Expanding a business or service is exciting, and it is easy to begin getting traffic, customers, and sales from it.

You just need to put in the work, make sure you cater to the needs of your new audience, and that your content and code are updated regularly. I hope this helps.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Toey Andante/Shutterstock

How Do I Optimize SEO Conversions On Non-Branded Search Terms? via @sejournal, @rollerblader

This week’s Ask an SEO question comes from Arpit, who asks:

“How do I optimize SEO conversions on non-branded search terms?”

Great question! This one is all about meeting user needs and modifying your copy or the page experience at the current step in the consumer journey.

And it applies to both B2B and B2C.

In some cases, you’ll need to use a multi-channel approach. The good news is it is a pretty easy one to solve.

The first step is to evaluate what the intent of the visitor is. Consider whether they are:

• In the research phase.
• Mid-funnel and choosing between products or vendors.
• Ready to convert but not ready to pull the plug.

In The Research Phase

Someone just researching solutions hasn’t decided if they’re ready to convert yet. So make sure you have remarketing pixels ready to tag them.

Remarketing is vital here because there is an interest in a product or service you provide.

By tagging them, you can bring them back once they’re ready to convert and share new content to help educate them during their journey. This is especially important with large and B2B purchases.

Pro-tip: PPC likely has the lifecycle timestamp and channel touchpoints if they’re tracking lifecycle customer data.

Remarketing includes email and SMS opt-ins, social media, PPC, and media planning or ad buys. And there’s a huge benefit to these channels from your SEO efforts.

Your company can save PPC money on low-intent but topically relevant keywords by having you rank for them and get the clicks for a new customer at a fraction of the cost.

The PPC, ads, and social media teams can work with your SEO top-funnel traffic to drive the conversion as the lead warms. Make sure they report back on this touchpoint so that all channels win in company-wide reporting.

Cold leads are an important part of the consumer journey and acquisition campaigns.

This even applies to medical needs like plastic surgery, large purchases like SaaS solutions and data centers, and corporate trip planning.

What we do with clients that have this problem is create thought leadership and educational content to build trust for the research phase.

By becoming a “trusted resource” or “authority” on the subject, we begin building a relationship with them mentally and a positive association with our brand.

By having educational content show up for each question they have, we have the opportunity to earn their trust as a company that really knows the topic.

This way, when they decide it is time to pull the plug, they may come to our sales page directly or see our remarketing ads and convert through them.

Either way, it is about meeting the user’s needs at each step of their journey.

Mid-funnel

Someone mid-funnel could be looking for comparisons or to solve a problem – like changing a water heater tank or learning how to do a pull-up.

If you’re taking them to a product page, they may not need the product yet. Instead, take them to demonstrations with a video or a written guide with step-by-step instructions to complete the task.

This way, they can see the solution with their own eyes and know you’ve been there and solved it before.

I’ll use the water tank as an example here.

By showing multiple standard sizes and where they fit in a room via images and video, you can help the person visualize the size they need vs. what they thought they needed.

You can explain how many minutes of hot water it can produce or answer other questions they might ask – and even those they haven’t thought of yet.

This builds trust while showing experience in their situation.

Next, demonstrate how to install it in case the user is a DIYer. This can be done on the same page, or you can lead them to a new one.

The benefit here is you can highlight which tools are needed and link to those product pages to increase your order value and items in a cart.

These are two metrics we report on with some clients. If it turns out to be too hard for them or intimidating, close the content out with a call to action to hire your company to do it for them.

Pro tip: If you are a local business and cannot offer nationwide services, sell the leads to a trusted third party.

Or let the consumer know that you do not service their area, but XYZ company does, and use an affiliate link (with an advertising disclosure) to provide a resource and ask the person to subscribe to your channel.

I have this guide to finding an affiliate program you can make money with and this one to getting started in affiliate marketing.

Ready To Convert But Didn’t Pull The Plug

This is the tricky one. You could have a “high-intent” keyword that isn’t converting as it should.

There are a couple of places I start here; these can fix a large portion of the conversion issue.

Option 1

Crawl and index your customer service conversations, then extract all that have the product or service mentioned.

Next, look for common questions and see if your product or service page explains you do offer them. If not, update your page as soon as possible.

Option 2

Use abandonment intent pop-ups to ask potential customers why they’re leaving. It may be you’re priced too high, or they don’t understand you actually provide the solution.

• If priced too high, work on trust builders like money-back guarantees, positive reviews, educating the audience on quality over discounts, or work on your pricing if you have a margin.
• When the copy doesn’t reflect you provide a solution, add it to your copy to answer the question. You could do an FAQ or place it within the product description above the CTA if enough people mention it.
• You can also work on getting PR mentions in industry and mass media websites. The logos on PR bars can increase trust and conversions in many niches.

Pro tip: If customers are not sure the product will fit, work, match (color, theme, size, etc…), or solve a problem, you may need to create a demonstration and guide content vs. optimizing a product page.

And try adding the uses to the product copy above the call to action.

Wrapping Up

The trick to converting non-branded search traffic is to find out what was missing from your current consumer or lead process and add it in.

If that doesn’t work, discover what step of the customer journey the person is in and bring them to the right experience.

And that is how you can convert non-branded SEO keywords into paying customers.

I hope this guide helps, and thank you for reading.

CRO is one of my favorite types of projects. Thank you for asking this one!

More resources: 

Featured Image: eamesBot/Shutterstock

Should You Focus On Zero Search Volume Keywords? (Festive Flashback) via @sejournal, @rollerblader

Celebrate the Holidays with some of SEJ’s best articles of 2023.

Our Festive Flashback series runs from December 21 – January 5, featuring daily reads on significant events, fundamentals, actionable strategies, and thought leader opinions.

2023 has been quite eventful in the SEO industry and our contributors produced some outstanding articles to keep pace and reflect these changes.

Catch up on the best reads of 2023 to give you plenty to reflect on as you move into 2024.

In this Ask an SEO, Mouna asks:

“Should we use a keyword even when we don’t have volume or keyword difficulty data ? Sometimes there are no info on [tool name redacted] concerning some keywords?”

Great question, Mouna!

And the answer is yes, you should focus on zero search volume keywords when it makes sense for your company.

Here are four examples to make the business case if you’re being asked, “Why would we focus on questions that nobody is searching for?”

1. You build a site structure.
2. Customers could be asking, and this provides a solution to both them and future customers.
3. It is cheaper to remarket to someone than to pay for all acquisition touchpoints.
4. The question may not have search volume, but responses show up for the main phrase which has substantial search volume.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these examples.

1. You’re Building A Site Structure

On ecommerce sites, and sites built for branding, the amount of core website pages and content is normally limited.

By having these topics that are relevant to what your company or organization does, you can use zero search volume keywords and entities to create topically relevant content.

This content helps search engines and potential customers learn what you do, and which pages provide those solutions.

As you mention or demonstrate a product or service, you can source the conversion page with an internal link. This is a natural way to build a site structure for SEO and help the website visitor at the same time.

And if the page gets backlinks from quality sources, it could boost your other pages for a larger SEO boost.

Pro Tip: Just because a tool shows there is zero search volume, it does not mean there are zero people searching.

If you build a quality experience, you could become the website that gets cited as journalists and bloggers are looking for resources.

2. Because Customers Are Asking

An SEO tool does not know what your customers are asking. They can only come up with variations of questions and make assumptions about how many people are actively searching.

Talk to your customer support team and get the database of live chat questions.

If your customers are actively asking these questions, and the question or phrase is showing up in the SEO tools, it means there is in fact a search volume – and it is likely a high-intent one, too.

A high-intent keyword with 100 monthly searches could drive more revenue than a low-intent phrase with 10,000, as the person is further along in the sales funnel and looking to convert.

Pro Tip: Because you know the person is looking for a specific answer, and your customer support team has shown what answers the question and converts the customer, you have a data-based advantage compared to someone taking a shot in the dark and going with online research.

One option is to create a dedicated blog post for the topic.

If there is a how-to part, try adding a video demonstration and go for the YouTube and Google Video results.

And if it is something people are asking that is directly related to the use of a product or service, consider adding it to the text on your product or service page, as it may lead to a higher conversion rate. This could also be a good addition to an FAQ.

By answering these questions for people who are considering shopping with you or using your services, you can let them know they’re in the right place.

This reduces customer support’s workload because they’re not answering the same thing multiple times, and gives the social media and PPC teams a new asset to land people.

3. Remarketing Is Cheaper Than Acquisition

If you can bring the person in through SEO, you can tag them with remarketing pixels.

Instead of bidding on the big keywords where you need a massive budget, you can tag the person higher up in the sales funnel and bring them back for pennies on the dollar.

The added benefit here is that you gave them a solution in the content without a hard sales pitch. If you did a good job, you gain their trust.

Now, as your remarketing ads show to them, you have already built credibility and trust and can keep them coming back to more relevant posts or direct conversions.

But this all depends on the topic and where the person is in your sales funnel.

4. Your Content Can Show Up For Bigger Phrases

Even if the long-tail phrase or question has no search volume, type the shorter volume phrase into a search engine in incognito mode.  You may find the question actually does appear in the following and you can take the traffic from:

• People Also Ask.
• Related searches.
• Videos.
• Knowledge panels.
• Other.

If the titles of these, or the responses, are the same as your topic, you could replace them by creating a more relevant and better user experience.  Even though your phrase has zero search volume, it still shows up for a phrase with 20,000 monthly searches.  It’s a trick we use with some of our clients who have newer sites and aren’t ready for link building.

Look at what is missing, but needed, to provide a solution for the topic, and create it.  If the current top sites have a great answer, but the answer is buried under fluff, create content that gives the answer first and then provides more solutions.

Pro Tip: I do this on YouTube sometimes. I look for the videos showing up in the top results for the big phrases and then look to see what plays after each.

From there I study why these videos are recommended, what they’re missing, and what the other videos have in common with them.

Then, I create a better video and try to get the viewer without going for the main phrase.

In Conclusion

Yes, zero search volume keywords are worth going after, but only if they’re relevant to your business.

They can increase conversions for people in your funnel, be used by multiple channels, and bring in traffic the SEO tools don’t account for.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock