Ways Primary Research Can Help Your SEO Efforts
Jun 15, 2016
10 min read
Table of contents
The rapid changes in the algorithm by popular search engines have altered the online landscape for businesses in a positive sense, by pushing the users to provide most useful and relevant content to their customers. This not only helped the businesses in getting quality leads but also the search engines to serve their visitors better. This is where marketing research and optimized SEO strategies stepped in: before you tackle the online space for rankings you must have a means to understand your customers. By gaining the right intelligence you will gain good insight to your customer’s needs and thoughts. This helps in developing content with informed SEO strategies and that in turn brings in legitimate increase in web traffic.
How Primary Research Helps
- Establishing the market research early in the development cycle focuses your efforts and helps reduce costly mistakes. Depending on the financial resources available with you, research about the customer needs and product based research can be done through primary research. This is done with the help of surveys and focus groups and the data is gathered and analysed accordingly.
- Idealy, the making of an online strategy begins with market research long before the development of a website. Here are some of the questions to evaluate your strategy: Is the website producing a healthy volume of visitors? Do these visitors make any purchase? If so, how frequently do they purchase, and within what timeframe? Do you have analytics softwares in place to analyze the location, access and use of your website by visitors? Understanding these questions and the answers to these questions will decide the future course of your SEO strategy and mould your content accordingly- and that your SEO strategy is organic and effective.
Understanding your buyer
User personas are fictional or ideal users that are created to be used in the making of a user-centred content design process to understand the various user types of a website. They can help you in not only finding the right keywords but also create the right content and be a useful tool in identifying the targets for building links. By obtaining quality research data, you can begin shaping an informed SEO strategy:
- You will be able to create ideal buyer personas. Group them all by factors such as age, gender, and buying habits. Now you will be able to focus your product line and strategies based on this data gathered.
- Jot down customer’s pain point and understand why they need your product in first place or why were they searching for products or services offered by you and competitors.
- You must pay attention to the location of your customers. Are they local or international clients?
How understanding the buyer persona helps?
Buyer Personas are a great help in brainstorming for the right keywords. At the earliest stage you need to some broad research of what users might search for in a query within your niche. If you’re generating seed terms, it’s useful to keep buyer persona’s in mind- do they reflect the need and intentions of all the potential buyers? Personas might also be helpful at the final stage in the keyword research process and that is implementation. This might be less important for on-page SEO activities, but it will direct about the tone and direction of the content on the landing pages. Personas for Link Bait User Personas can also be a helpful tool when creating and implementing a link building strategy. First and foremost we could use user personas to identify link baits. For example- Roger the techie, might be likely to own a gadget blog, or is at least highly likely to to be a reader of similar sites. So what sort of content gadget sites link out to? This will help in knowing substance of the content and the format(videos, infographics, guides etc.) So you can also use your personas as a test for your content link bait- Would Roger be interested in this? Would he share it?
Personas for Guest Posting
Finally, User Personas would be a great way to brainstorm for guest post topic ideas. Before you start, you should think what sort of sites your personas might use and what kind of content they might want to read when they get there.
Why letting your patients book appointments online is vital for your dental practice
Recently, we have been talking a lot about getting more patients for your dental practice by marking your presence online in distinct ways.One sure fire way that dentists must focus on to bring in more patients to their practice is localization and the other is collecting and maintaining reviews about the services you provide. But are these the only ways dental practices can bring in more patients through their door? Absolutely not!In this post, we will talk about another proven way that can result in some serious dental business for your practice. And it’s not even that hard to implement. Actually, it has a lot to do with facilitating patient appointments. Figured it out yet? We are talking about letting your patients book appointments online through your own dental website.Which can be easily implemented on your website with the help of a software or a web development agency, like us, that can integrate this functionality on your website for you.Doesn’t matter how you do it, the bottomline is that you really have to provide your patients the option of booking appointments online. Why? Studies suggest so… GetApp, a leading directory of business apps, recently conducted a research on patient behavior when it comes to booking appointments for a treatment. Here are some of its key findings - 70% of patients prefer to schedule doctor’s appointments online when compared to doing it via call or by any other means. 56.4% of respondents are frustrated with waiting on hold when it comes to scheduling appointments by phone. 31% of respondents were more likely to choose a competitor if they offered online booking functionality on their website. The study clearly highlights a trend shift in the way patients prefer booking their medical treatments and it seems like they want the experience just to be like the way they hire a cab or order food online. Quick and easy. But the shift has been gradual and is not in any way new to the medical industry. Many forward-thinkers predicted this trend shift early on and added the functionality on their websites to get a headstart. Many small to medium sized dental practices that started providing this functionality, before anyone else, to their website visitors have witnessed growth and some patients even claimed that they chose them just because they had this functionality on their website. The story of Zocdoc I don’t think there’s a better example than Zocdoc when it comes to explaining the power of letting patients book appointments online. The founder of Zocdoc, Oliver Kharraz, is a forward-thinker himself and predicted this trend shift early (I mean really early. Like, in 2007) and capitalized on it by creating a platform that did just that, book medical appointments online. By using the Zocdoc platform, patients could choose the medical services they want and book appointments online with the available doctors nearby that provide those exact services. The platform reportedly reduced the wait time of booking medical appointments from a staggering 45 days in some cities to just 24 hours, which is amazing if you are looking to get some quick medical attention. The result, more than 6 million patients today use Zocdoc to find doctors and book appointments with them online in the United States alone.Need more convincing about how implementing an online appointment booking functionality on your website will do you only good and no harm. Here are 4 more reasons to go for it right now - Ease of Access When you provide an option to your patients to book an appointment with you directly from your website, you reduce a lot of friction. It saves your patients from going through the unnecessary hassle of calling your practice to book an appointment and saves a lot of wait time in the process as well.Moreover, with you providing the online booking facility, your patients will feel like you are dedicated in what you do and care about their wants and needs. Which is great, trust really matters in the dental space. At work 24*7 Having an appointment scheduler widget on your website means that you are ready to take in appointments as they come. Your practice will no longer be limited to your front end executive availability in the office to take calls and confirm bookings. Reduces no-shows The traditional appointment scheduling method, that involved calling, took somewhere around 15-20 days to successfully book a treatment. On the other hand, online booking appointments take somewhere around 24 hours (at max) to completely book treatments, which reduces no-shows and lost revenues by a big margin. More conversions Obviously, when there will be an easy option to book appointments on your website, there will be increased conversions as well. All your marketing efforts will bore more fruit if you have an appointment scheduler placed on your website’s homepage. Many practitioners have claimed that placing the scheduler on their website has increased their conversions by as much as 40% and in the dental sphere, 40% is still a lot of long-term business! Nothing enhances the patient experience on your website more than an appointment scheduler. We understand its importance and it’s about time you understood it too (if you haven’t already)As I said before, implementing it on a website is as easy as installing a plugin from the Wordpress plugin store. If you are facing any difficulties in integrating it on your website, you can use our help as well. ...
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5 Common Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
Marketing is a kind of big investment for all sized business. A powerful marketing plan not only brings you across the right customers, but it can also let everyone talk positive about your organization and your product or services. However, this marketing strategy should be properly planned and developed properly. Even a few flaws of your marketing plan can cause a big disaster in your business, costing your business millions of dollars in other expenses and huge loss of revenue. Here is a list of five common mistakes which most of the business owners make while marketing their business online: 1. Choosing wrong Target Audience Always remember that you cannot sell your products or services to everyone. Generate an effective idea of the psychographics and demographics of your target market and focus at it effectively. If you have customers from different psychographic or demographic purchase from you, it acts as an additional bonus for your business. As soon as you start focusing on a definite group, its trends, interests and purchasing habits, you will soon understand its requirements. This will help you in providing a creative marketing solution to the users. 2. Lack of Testing and Market Research Initial testing and market research are essential processes as they help in determining the overall performance of your marketing efforts. They also find out what exactly your existing customers and clients expect from your business. You should try to ensure that you execute your task accurately when in terms of testing your different prices, packages and offers, The next step is to obtain a feedback of your customers to analyze their reaction towards all your marketing initiatives. 3. Not Updating your Business Website Maintaining and updating business profile reflect your business presence in front of your current and prospective customers. If you have a blog on your website, then, it should be updated as well. It can also help you in building trust and loyalty between you and your clients. Updated content on your website even helps your business in building domain authority. 4. Improper Positioning and focus area Marketing is not just about building up a big organization while ignoring the most essential aspect i.e. brand awareness in this process. Try to generate a creative marketing plan which demands an instant and positive response from your customers. Improper market positioning and focus area could be avoided by following a genuine solution and positioning of successful marketing. 5. Losing your Repetitive Customers Eighty percent of your business comes from your current customers and the remaining twenty percent is the outcome of your prospective customers you have attracted. Losing your current and repetitive customers can have a destructive effect on your business profits. This can cost you ten times the actual cost to sell your new customer than selling it to your current customer. Conclusion By avoiding the above stated common marketing mistakes, you can definitely increase the potential of your business growth and success rate. To know more about marketing strategies and latest digital trends of marketing, Contact us ! ...
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What is Marketing Automation Workflow and How to Create One?
Would you like to generate more leads, engage and retain your customers, and save time simultaneously? Then, you need to use marketing automation workflows. It’s no wonder that automated messages drove over 29% of all email marketing orders in 2022. Workflows help to increase sales and engagement. For example, a welcome automation workflow would be sent to new subscribers, whereas a cart abandonment workflow would be sent to visitors who added items to their cart and left without purchasing (something 85% of consumers did in 2022!). In these instances, the recipients would need very different messages. What is marketing automation workflow? A marketing automation workflow is a series of automated actions that are executed based on predefined triggers and rules. It is designed to streamline and optimize marketing tasks. These workflows can include sending emails, scoring leads, posting on social media, and more, all aimed at nurturing leads, engaging customers, and driving conversions. By automating repetitive tasks, businesses can ensure consistent and personalized communication with their audience, improving efficiency and effectiveness in their marketing strategies. An automated email workflow frees up your time, contacting your subscribers while allowing you to focus on other tasks with the help of marketing automation services. What do you need to know about marketing automation workflows? McKinsey research has even demonstrated a 40% revenue increase for companies that have mastered personalization. Before you create your first marketing workflows, here are a few things that can help to improve their performance: Segmentation: Segmenting your audience ensures you send the right message to the right person at the right time and allows you to create much more personalized campaigns. Instead of sending the same email to everyone, you can tailor your communication based on the recipients’: Location Demographics (e.g., age, gender, occupation) Browsing or purchasing history The amount of money they spend with you The likelihood of them unsubscribing from your list Automation Triggers: Once your marketing automation workflow has been created, the next question is, what will trigger it? Triggers will vary based on the workflows, such as: Filling out the sign-up form, triggering the welcome email Visiting a specific product page, triggering a product abandonment workflow Adding an item to the cart and leaving, triggering a cart abandonment workflow A/B Testing: Creating messages is only step one. Next, you need to check that they resonate with your audience. The best way to do this is A/B testing—having at least two communication versions running simultaneously and comparing results to learn which performs better. You can test several variables to see which drives the most open, click, or order rates, including the following for emails: CTAs Subject lines Body Content Personalization, such as mentioning the recipient’s name SMS Campaigns: You could monitor open and click rates for SMS campaigns. It’s even possible to see which channels drove the highest overall amount of completed orders on your store pages. One option would be to send an email with an offer and follow up with an SMS if the recipient hasn’t opened it within two hours. Some brands use SMS to alert people to time-sensitive emails or push notifications to boost site traffic. Communication Channels: The evidence is conclusive: using multiple channels in your marketing workflows increases sales. The increase is not small: marketers that used three or more channels in a campaign had an order rate 494% higher than those using single-channel campaigns, and incorporating push messages drove a 614% higher order rate. Want to reduce your CAC to half? Book a strategy call How to create marketing automation workflows? Marketing automation can seem daunting, but it's easier than you might think. Let's break down the key elements of an efficient marketing automation workflow to help you get started. Triggers A trigger is an action or event that prompts your technology to move to the next step in the workflow. Triggers are usually based on user actions or periods of inaction. For example, in ActiveCampaign, you can set up triggers like submitting a form, clicking a link in an email, making a purchase, and more. Actions Actions are what your marketing automation platform will do in response to a trigger. If the trigger is the "if," the action is the "then." For instance, if someone opens an email (the trigger), your system might send them a follow-up email (the action) 48 hours later. Conditions Conditions must be met for the system to complete the triggered action. For example, you might set up a workflow where the trigger is a customer making a purchase, and the action is to send them a discount code for their next purchase. However, this action will only occur if the initial purchase was $50 or more. Conditions ensure that actions are only triggered under the right circumstances and can also guide different paths for users based on whether conditions are met. Time Controls Time controls, or flow controls, determine exactly when an action is taken. Most automated marketing tasks happen on a delay, ranging from a few minutes to several days or weeks later. When building a marketing automation workflow for your sales funnel, remember: The trigger tells your system that an action must be taken. Conditions provide guardrails to ensure the action is appropriate for the contact and situation. Time controls determine when the action is taken. The action engages with the contact to deepen and continue the relationship. Putting It All Together What makes marketing automation workflows so powerful is that, after an action is taken, the user can set off a new trigger, starting the next step of their customer journey. This cycle of engagement leads to an improved customer experience, higher retention rates, and increased revenue. By understanding and implementing triggers, actions, conditions, and time controls, you can create effective marketing automation workflows that streamline your email marketing automation efforts and enhance customer relationships. This approach ensures your strategies are optimized for success. Top 10 marketing automation workflow examples Let’s explore the following 10 growth marketing automation workflows for growth: Welcome Automation Workflow Trigger: Subscribe to or purchase a product/service Description: A welcome email is the first message a new contact receives after signing up with you, and they have an average open rate of 30.69%—more than 202% higher than usual email campaigns. They can be individual messages or a series of messages, and we usually see a series of three emails generate better results. Browse Abandonment Automation Workflow Trigger: When browsers leave important pages Description: Browse abandonment automation workflows help you to re-engage visitors who look around your website but leave without taking action. The goal is to return them to your site to recapture lost conversions. Product Abandonment Automation Workflow Trigger: When the visitor lands on a specific product page only Description: A product abandonment workflow is similar to browsing abandonment emails but with one key difference: they’re sent to view only specific products. In comparison, a browse abandonment email is broader and more general. Cart Abandonment Automation Workflow Trigger: When visitors add a product to their cart but don’t finish the purchase Description: Cart abandonment is one of the most popular marketing automation workflows. It’s also highly effective—using this workflow, Snatcher Online generated over $120,000 in under one year. Order Confirmation Automation Workflow Trigger: When visitors complete the transaction Description: Order confirmation emails are among the most effective in terms of open and click-through rates. That’s largely because the person has made a purchase and is expecting the email, which typically includes details of the order and an estimated delivery date. Shipping Confirmation Automation Workflow Trigger: When the order has been shipped Description: A shipping confirmation automation workflow is usually short, consisting of a single message informing a buyer that their order has shipped. Upselling/Cross-Selling Automation Workflow Trigger: Segmentation rules of customers based on purchase behavior Description: Upselling is when you encourage a customer to buy a similar but higher-end version of a product they’re considering. Cross-selling is when the customer purchases something to complement their original item. Product Review Marketing Automation Workflow Trigger: Product purchase or another customer’s interaction with your store Description: Reviews are powerful—they tell potential customers they can trust you and your products, which can help boost sales. Not all customers leave reviews; manually asking every buyer can be very time-consuming. Birthday Marketing Automation Workflow Trigger: The date that matches your subscribers’ birthdays Description: Let your audience know you care by sending them a message on their birthday. These messages can be highly personalized—or at least, they should be if you’re following best practices. Custom Automation Workflows Trigger: Various triggers that your needs could customize Description: The beauty of an automated email workflow is that it can be whatever you want. So, if you’ve looked at the previous nine examples and thought you have a scenario we haven’t covered, don’t worry—that’s where custom automation workflows come in. How does Saffron Edge help in marketing automation? SaffronEdge specializes in creating personalized marketing automation workflows to enhance your business's engagement and conversion rates. By leveraging advanced segmentation, personalized communication, and multi-channel strategies, we ensure your messages reach the right audience at the right time. Our team also conducts thorough A/B testing to optimize your campaigns and maximize results. Partner with SaffronEdge to streamline your marketing efforts and drive sustainable growth through effective automation, highlighting the importance of marketing automation. ...
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