Every digital marketer love seeing their websites in the top ranks of the SERPs.
In fact, being a digital marketer, you have always been wondering what you can do best to see your website ranking high. But have you ever thought that instead of trying hard to rank higher, you can just utilize a few SERP features to better your content strategy?
Yes, that’s all it takes. You just need to flip your thought process and work accordingly to shape up your content strategy.
Communicate with your target audience. Address the pain points that they are facing in their buyer’s journey, no matter the stage.
Now, answer this simple question.
What does google do? Solve your queries, right?
Exactly, that’s the point that you need to stick to. SERP features are designed in a way to bring out the most relevant answers. In fact, Google claims the same.
So, all you need to do is finding out the most relevant keywords, their style as well as the format and mimic it in your content. Create content which can engage with your audience at any given stage of the buyer’s journey.
SERP Features to Keep an Eye On
Burning their midnight oil for the top rank in the SERPs, digital marketeers often tend to take no notice of the key point i.e., SERP features.
But you would never want to make the same mistake, would you?
To help you with that, here we have mentioned the most vital SERP features that you need to keep an eye on.
- Featured Snippet
- Related Questions
- Video Carousels
- Knowledge Graph
- Reviews
- In-depth Article
- Image Pack
Now, let’s explore further into these SERP Features.
How to Connect SERP Features to the Stages of Buyer’s Journey
Connecting your content with the SERP features with the buyer’s journey is an imperative task that you cannot miss out on. Let’s find out how you can do that.
Awareness Stage
At this is the stage where your prospect knows about the pain point that they are facing. So, in order to have a better understanding of the same, they will search for the same on the Internet.
To connect with them at this stage, you need to address the issues that they are facing in a brief manner. This approach will help them understand that you are on the same page with them regarding the pain point.
Now, let’s see how Google’s SERP features take care of the searches performed by an awareness stage audience.
Knowledge Graph
This is the feature that the awareness stage audience refer to the most. It includes chunks of information and definitions which contain multiple keywords that are relevant to the search.
Featured Snippet
This SERP features comes up mostly with the answers to direct questions that the audience of an awareness stage is looking for. Here you can find brief definitions as well as explanations of several concepts and issues that a person of this stage comes across. Most importantly, the content in this feature also contains keywords that are relevant to the search.
Video Carousels
For the audience of awareness stage, Google leverages videos that contain answers to FAQs or how-to questions. The primary focus of such videos is concept formation, problem solving and helping the awareness stage audience with getting the bigger picture.
Related Questions
These questions come up under the section “People also ask”. They are seamlessly aligned with the queries of the audience of this stage and focus on educating the audience about the problem.
Images
To bring out more precise image responses, Google focuses on images that contain short-tail keywords which are aligned with this stage.
How to Tweak Your Content Strategy Accordingly: Awareness Stage
The level of understanding of every stage of the buyer’s journey is different and so should be the content ideas.
At this stage you need to cater a very large group of audience who can belong from several industries. And this variety of audience looks up to you with a variety of intent that you need to provide content for.
Now, you need to understand that the audience of this stage has little to no understanding about your existence. So, here your main target has to help yourself get recognized as a thought leader by addressing their queries. So, language does play a vital role.
To gain the attention of your prospects of this stage, you need to stop beating around the bush and craft content that is to the point. Also, keep in mind to use such language that is clear and concise to help your audience have a better understanding.
Awareness stage is your chance to make an impact on the minds of the audience. So, you need to try grabbing maximum attention by crafting educating content in a very easy-to-understand language. This will help you gain credibility as your content is on the same page of their understanding and you are not confusing them with industry jargons.
Lastly, there are several formats that you need to maintain while creating content for such an audience. Make sure your content has headers, bullet points and numbered lists (all or any). This will help the awareness stage audience to understand what you propose without wasting much time.
When it is about images, make sure to include alt tags so that your audience finds them in their searches.
Consideration Stage
Speaking of the audience who are in the middle of their buyer’s journey, i.e., the consideration stage, they have a sound understanding of their problem as your content helped them with the same, although they do not know how to solve it.
At this stage they will be looking for a feasible solution on the Internet. And, as they go to Google for the same, they will come across numerous vendors promising to solve their pain point. Here they will be learning about how those solutions can resolve the same.
Now, let’s see how Google’s SERP features take care of the searches performed by a consideration stage audience.
Featured Snippet
When Google notices a search that has been conducted by someone who is probably in the consideration stage, they feature lists of products or comparisons among several products in their snippet. In this case, you won’t find to-the-point answers like you did for awareness stage.
Related Questions
In this “People also ask” section, consideration stage audience will find question-answers that are more technical and answer “why” related questions. This is because, people of this stage usually seek reasons to invest money in a solution.
Reviews
Product reviews also appear in the SERPs as they tend to raise comparisons between products as well as the experience of previous buyers. This is something considerations stage audience actively search for.
Video Carousels
When a search gets triggered which is likely from someone of consideration stage, videos pop up in the SERP which explain how certain products are capable of solving the pain point.
How to Tweak Your Content Strategy Accordingly: Consideration Stage
This is your chance to establish your product/service as the most effective as well as efficient solution among all others.
To convince your consideration stage audience to believe in your product, you need to establish that the solution that you provide them with is the most viable one. You need to create content that contains a convincing argument as well as discussion that aims for the same.
You can also add illustrations that will help them understand why they should invest their hard-earned money in your product/service in an easy-to-understand manner.
Here you can put up content that is longer than those that you had crafted for your awareness stage audience. But your content needs to be more descriptive as well as convincing. You can also add a few technical terms as you can expect that the person has performed enough research to get a good hold of the language that you are speaking in.
But make sure that you do not exceed the potentials of your solution as that might help you convert but, you and your product will end up having a bad review as well as zero chances of word-of-mouth marketing. Gaining credibility is very important at this point in time, so stay true to what you deliver.
Lastly, speaking of videos, make sure that your video content is available in YouTube. This is because YouTube, today, is used more as a search engine than a video platform. Now, to make sure that your video appears in the YouTube searches, you need to add keywords to the title and description of your videos.
Decision Stage
This is the most critical phase for both your target audience as well as for you. Here, your audience knows the problem, has a good understanding of what solutions are most feasible (If you have followed the previous points then you are definitely in that list), knows why they will invest and is ready to make the final move. But you be very cautious as this part involves monetary investment and you need to make sure that you are the one getting the complete benefit.
Here, you need to prove to your audience that your previous customers have had a good experience from using your product/service. This is a crucial part as people believe people more than any business.
Now, let’s see how Google’s SERP features handle the searches performed by a decision stage audience.
Related Questions
Here you will find questions and answers containing phrases like the best or such superlative phrases that clearly indicate the transformation from the former to decision stage. This is because this is the stage where your prospects will be making their final decision depending on hard proof.
Video Carousels
The videos that pop-up in the SERP for this stage searcher are mostly testimonials from previous buyers testifying the success of a product as well as what they have experienced while using it. Such videos are used as a proof in order to convince people who are in the decision stage of the buyer’s journey.
In-depth Article/Long-form Content
This is where people get to see long-form content which are long, as the name suggests and have in-depth information contained in them. Such articles range from 2000 to 4000 words or even more. Such articles contain a good lot of information and usually act as a guide in order to help the buyer figure out which one to pick. In order to appear in the searches, they tend to have long-tail keywords in them.
How to Tweak Your Content Strategy Accordingly: Decision Stage
This is the time to educate your audience with every question that has not been answered yet and every detail that has not been cast light on.
Now you might be wondering why this is so important. Let us tell you.
Whatever query that has not been addressed in your long-form content will make your audience leave your website to visit your competitor site to look for answers. You should seem like an industry expert who knows it all for your buyer who is at the decision stage. And is why you should answer every possible query that might arise in the minds of your audience.
Your in-depth articles should also contain statistics as well as examples that prove the potential of your product/service. These details will be compelling enough to help you convince your audience with the capabilities of your product.
Speaking of language, you can surely use technical language in your content as prospects who are in the decision stage are already aware of what they are looking for. So, providing them with quality information might stretch your article to above 2000 words, but that is justified.
Also, use illustrations and videos whenever you feel necessary to establish a certain point or build clear concepts in the minds of your audience.
Mapping Content Throughout the Buyer’s Journey is Important to Shape Your Content Strategy
Google says, SERP features are designed depending on what people search.
So, it is quite imperative to map your content accordingly so that they can fit in right. And, for that you need to have a deeper understanding of how Google’s SERPs do it. If you can do the same, then you will surely get a higher rank with the help of Google algorithms as well as an SEO strategy in place.
Following the SERP features closely will help you create content that resonates your audience’s queries and solve them, throughout their buyer’s journey, without having you to guess for what to write of how to strategize your content in order to achieve a better rank.
