What Is The Most Important Part Of SEO?
The most important part of SEO is determining who your audience is and giving them what they want. How you do that depends on the type of site, but no matter what, you need to build sites for users- never for search engines.
Think about the digital customer decision journey. We break it down into introduction, interest, intent, and conversion. Like so:
Introduction
Let’s use an example. Let’s say you’re a contractor specializing in roofing. You make the most money replacing roofs rather than patching them. The purpose of your site is lead gen. You need qualified leads who are looking for this particular service.
Well, you know that your audience is homeowners. More importantly, it’s homeowners who have a PROBLEM. Nobody replaces their roof unless it’s failing. So what are they looking for? They’re likely going to go online and try to diagnose the problem first. So maybe In addition to enlisting a roofing marketing agency to assist you, maybe you want to land for things like you want to land for things like:
- What to do about roof leaking
- Water coming into attic
- Water and mold in attic
This is just an example of how it can look, to answer the question “What Is The Most Important Part Of SEO?”. If you can get them to land on your site when researching, you’ve now introduced them to your site and your brand. As an added bonus, these are longer-tail, probably less competitive keywords.
Interest
Ok, now they understand the extent of the problem and they have interest in getting a new roof. What do they want to know? You probably want content like:
- Pricing information/cost calculator
- Images of previous jobs
- Licenses
- Testimonials
So now they’ve checked you out and it looks like you’re trustworthy and know what you’re doing and have happy customers. So now they want to hire you…
Intent
Now they intend to get you to replace their roof but they want specifics so they can plan for this job. What do they need now? Maybe things like:
- How long will this take?
- Can I live in the house while this is going on?
- How quickly can you make an appointment?
We’re trying to move them from intent to the most important part of the funnel….
Conversion
How do they WANT to convert? Give them lots of options. Make it as easy as possible and with clear calls to action that tell them what to expect:
- A form to fill out (keep it as simple as possible). Maybe the CTA is “Fill out our form to schedule a no-obligation estimate. We respond to all queries within 24 hours.”
- A phone number readily available- probably in the header but also on the page(s). CTA: “Call us to schedule a free consultation”
- A live chat feature- CTA: “Chat with a live representative right now”
Again, this was just one example to make it easy to understand y but the same principle applies to every audience. In some cases interest and intent might meld together. And some people might go straight from introduction to conversion. The point is, create a site that gets your audience everything they need at every stage of engaging with you.
So, to answer the question “What Is The Most Important Part Of SEO?” The most important part of SEO is making a good website.
