SEO has traditionally been seen as an acquisition channel, focused on ranking websites to generate more traffic and leads. However, the role of SEO can extend far beyond simple acquisition.
This article explores how SEO can strategically influence activation, retention and community building to drive long-term growth and customer loyalty.
The role of SEO in user activation
By definition, user activation is the moment when a user achieves value. This is usually after a user has converted, either paid or trial, but their goals have been met.
To successfully activate, users must meet their expectations with the product or service.
This means that the content of our website must allow users to adequately and accurately predict their possible experience with your company. This is where the concept of “experience forecasting” comes into play.
The idea is based on the premise that search engines are evolving to focus more on satisfying the user’s goal, rather than just keywords.
Experience forecasting aims to match SEO efforts with user intent, entities and the concept of EEAT, creating more targeted and effective content to address user issues and potential objections to the purchase.
A good example of this in practice can be seen in the travel industry.
Detailed descriptions, images and user-generated content (UGC) help potential visitors imagine their stay, activities and overall experience at a destination.
By considering images, feature presentation, descriptions, user reviews, and external factors (eg, weather expectations, seat limits, file types), companies can align user expectations with the experience it offers.
Content that does this isn’t trying to sell your products/services to users, it’s helping them buy.
Historically, community was a byproduct of customer service and product-led growth strategies, and not their focal point of user growth and retention.
Retention can mean two things when we talk about it in the context of SEO and marketing.
We can refer to this as retaining a customer and preventing churn or keeping an active user coming back to the website and consuming more content during their passive buying and research phases.
The more positive brand touchpoints we can create with users, the more likely they are to love and become brand advocates.
The connection between SEO and customer retention is crucial, but often overlooked, and from experience, is very important to long-term growth.
Get the daily search newsletter marketers trust.
SEO and community content
Community as a concept offers brands a point of value differentiation from the competition, especially in industries where, for the most part, products and services are homogenized or feature checkboxes.
They can act as a deterrent to customer churn by providing additional value on top of the actual service they engage with and a great defensive SEO strategy against new market competitors.
A defensive SEO strategy focuses on protecting a website’s current ranking and protecting it against potential threats that could negatively impact search engine visibility and organic traffic, such as generative search experience and other changes important SERPs.
That dynamic recently changed after several Google updates saw Reddit and other forums skyrocket in organic visibility. This has seen increased investment in communities, but for some it has only been the creation of a forum.
While this is a positive first step, simply creating a forum and community functionality does not equal or create a community.
For a community to thrive, members must be able to interact and participate as freely as possible. This means putting in place streamlined content submission processes (with appropriate moderation levels) so there’s no friction and contributing doesn’t feel like a chore.
As a community becomes more established and users feel more honored to contribute, that’s when you can start to structure yourself more around new collaborators.
Cloudflare has a great example of community content and has built a sizable community content moat around their brand.
There are many competitors in the Cloudflare space and the technologies can be quite difficult to distinguish for a high percentage of their target total addressable market (TAM), but the community provides differentiating value and added value for users.
From an SEO perspective, it doesn’t hurt the community either. The subdomain occupies approximately 166,000 search terms and has over 70,000 backlinks, contributing to the overall success of the SEO program.
Redefining the role of SEO for sustainable engagement
As search engines continue to evolve and develop more and more AI-based features, how can we use content and SEO to create a value differentiator that creates the difference between low-quality content (which is now scaling thanks to to the AI) and the genuine add. – Content of value.
The view that SEO and content as a product of SEO is just an acquisition channel is evolving to show how SEO can play a more holistic role in the marketing function, driving customer loyalty, advocacy and engagement .
Businesses that recognize and adapt to this change will be better positioned to thrive in the competitive digital landscape, turning casual visitors into loyal customers and brand advocates.
This also contributes to the notion of EEAT.
Companies with a more relatable and immersive brand experience, regardless of whether a user is actively shopping, researching or an existing customer, create resonance and trust.
This is a compelling growth opportunity and defensive SEO strategy to combat AI and SERP changes. This is an opportunity to redefine organic growth strategies, emphasizing sustainable engagement and long-term value creation over short-term acquisition metrics.
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
[ad_2]
Source link
