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How to Align Your SEO Strategy & Buyer Journey

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Assuming your customers nd you exactly when they are about to purchase is not only ignorant, it is also hur ng
your ability to grow leads and customers. Although variable from company to company, all customers take a
journey when making a purchase. Today, this journey o!en involves the use of search engines.

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your ability to grow leads and customers. Although variable from company to company, all customers take a
journey when making a purchase. Today, this journey o!en involves the use of search engines.
As a marketer, I must admit that when I rst began implemen ng SEO strategies, I was so xed on the keywords
and proper forma7ng on websites that I forgot that there was an actual human being that would be using the
search engine(for the record, this was over four years ago when everyone and their mother approached SEO
similarly). However, the buyer journey is one of the most important aspects of SEO because search engines like
Google ul mately want to help buyers on their journey.

What Is a Buyer Journey?

A buyer journey, simply put, is the path a person or company will take when purchasing a product or service.
This path may some mes be quite short (e.g. I hopped on Amazon to do all of my holiday shopping in a record
30 minutes), but it can also be quite long (e.g. I spent two months researching the car I leased due to cost and
impact the investment would have on my life). Each ac on that the customer takes on his or her way to a
purchase is considered an important step in the buyer journey.
The buyer journey is an essen al part of inbound marke ng because it can help you iden fy gaps in your exis ng
strategy. One companys buyer journey will be wildly variable to another companys. Even further, your company
will likely have a dierent buyer journey for each of your buyer personas. The image below depicts a typical
buyer's journey:

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Iden fy Buyer Personas

Before you jump into SEO or the buyers journey, you should have a clear understanding of your buyer personas.
A buyer persona is, essen ally, a prole of your ideal prospect. You can learn more about crea ng buyer
personas in our Ul mate Guide to Inbound Marke ng Personas, but here is the basic informa on that is
important to crea ng a buyer persona:
Role
Responsibili es
Type of company they work for
Goals
Pain points
Common objec ons
Iden ers (e.g. risk taker)
Once youve developed 3-5 buyer personas, you can begin to iden fy how well exis ng content ts the buyer
persona, map it to the buyer journey, and then u lize this informa on to build your SEO strategy.

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Once youve developed 3-5 buyer personas, you can begin to iden fy how well exis ng content ts the buyer
persona, map it to the buyer journey, and then u lize this informa on to build your SEO strategy.

Map Content to the Buyer Journey

Considering SEO is used to help people nd your content, aligning your SEO strategy and buyer journey starts by
rst mapping your content to the buyer journey. To do this, youll take each piece of content you have and
iden fy the stage and buyer persona this content applies to (Content may overlap for some buyer personas).
Because this exercise is to help align the journey with SEO, you should also do this with website product and
service pages and also with your blogs because well want to be sure later on that weve got search queries for
all your content even if it isnt a gated oer. If you have a signicant amount of blogs, map by grouping topics.
Below is an example of how this mapping should look (You can actually download some of the examples of oers
in the SmartBug Resource Center).

Once you have compiled a list of your content and mapped to the appropriate stage, you can complete further
analysis to iden fy the content that you are missing for each step of the buyers journey. For now, lets transi on
towards SEO.

Create Categories and Topics of Current & Future Content

During the buyer persona exercise, you should have iden ed some buzzwords, problems, goals and terminology
used by each buyer persona. Use this informa on to compile a list of topics or categories that will then be used
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During the buyer persona exercise, you should have iden ed some buzzwords, problems, goals and terminology
used by each buyer persona. Use this informa on to compile a list of topics or categories that will then be used
to form the basis of your keyword strategy. For example:
Lead genera on
Web design
SEO
From here, you can begin to drill further to ul mately iden fy target keywords.

Iden fy Keyword Possibili es

Now that youve iden ed the 5-10 dierent categories of topics, which are really the categories of your
keyword strategy, you can move on to iden fying the keywords for your content. To do this, take each step
below:
1. Start by iden fying your exis ng ranked keywords using a tool like HubSpot
2. Explore new keyword opportuni es(Click here to learn more about good keyword opportuni es) using the
following:
Start with a general approach by checking your categories/topics
Discover long-tail opportuni es by combining each stages query words with the topic(e.g. [query type =
improve] + [topic = lead genera on] = improve lead genera on)
Map each possible keyword target to a stage in the funnel. Some keywords may not apply to every one of your
buyer personas journeys and some may work for more than one. Below is an example of what this may look like.

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When Are Keywords Most Important in the Buyers Journey?

Although a buyer may search for a product or service during the considera on and decision stages, most of
search occurs during the Awareness stage when the buyer is rst learning about the problem and opportunity.
Thus, when doing keyword research, you are likely to see more monthly searches for keywords that fall into the
Awareness stage.
In addi on, there is a signicantly less search volume for keywords that may fall into the Decision stage. In some
industries and for some buyer journeys, the buyer may not search at all during the Decision stage.

For these reasons, you should consider the following ps:

Start by researching keywords in the Considera on and Decision stage. Low monthly search volume may
mean that search isnt used by your buyer in these stages.
Concentrate more target keywords in the Awareness stage. This essen ally widens your funnel of prospects
by helping people nd you before theyve discovered the best way to solve their problem.

Where Should Keywords be Implemented?

A!er youve iden ed 20-30 target keywords that are op mized for you buyers journey and personas, youll
have the task of implemen ng on your website. The intent behind the keyword or, in other words, the stage in
the funnel largely dictates where keywords should be placed. There are logical steps you should take in
implemen ng, but rst lets go over the important elements of on-page SEO. Here are all the basic elements you

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the funnel largely dictates where keywords should be placed. There are logical steps you should take in
implemen ng, but rst lets go over the important elements of on-page SEO. Here are all the basic elements you
should be sure to add a target keywords to:
H1 tag or headline
Page tle
Throughout the copy of the page
Image alt text
To learn more about op mizing website pages for SEO, download this guide.
Next, you should follow these logical steps in implemen ng keywords (a SEO worksheet will be valuable at this
point):
1. Product/Service pages: Start by iden fying target keywords from your list of keywords that t best for your
core service and product website pages. These are typically the keywords found in the Decision stage.
2. Persona-based pages: Youve already broken your keywords up by persona. If you have website pages that
are tailored to a persona, op mize that page for the keywords that are only relevant to that page and
persona.
3. Content Oers: If youve already got landing pages for content oers, be sure that they are op mized
around one of your target keywords. Once youve nished op mizing exis ng content oers, iden fy areas
where you need to develop content for a keyword and stage of the funnel that is lacking.
4. Blogs: Your blog posts can contain keywords from each stage of the funnel and for each persona, which is
why they are so helpful in growing search engine trac. Start by op mizing exis ng blogs for SEO and then
ensure blogs you create in the future adhere to those guidelines.

Cau on, One-Size Doesnt Fit All

As outlined, iden fying buyer personas, mapping content, and then developing keywords is important because
you have to have a thorough understanding of who will be doing the searching and when they will be doing the
searching before implemen ng SEO. U lize the advice in this ar cle, but, by all means, take cau on by
considering what works best your buyers journey.
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searching before implemen ng SEO. U lize the advice in this ar cle, but, by all means, take cau on by
considering what works best your buyers journey.
If you would like help developing your buyers journey and the content that sa ses the buyers needs at each
stage,contact SmartBug Media today for a consulta on.

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