Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
Basically in short, our entire thesis
of doing content in a way that produces
leads and conversions is based around
producing bottom of funnel content,
which we define as content that ranks
for terms that the act of googling
that term suggests the person is doing.
Ready or whatever in the mood could be
convinced for your product or service
category keywords It's like the basic
thing that you are that people would be
googling if they're looking exactly for
the particular product You're selling
we found main category keywords like the
thing that a product or service is was
converting near five percent And by the
way This is converting to what converting
to a product conversion and just to level
set you if you have not intentionally
done You Bottom of funnel type SEO like
this and gone after these keywords.
Chances are your content
is converting at like 0.
1%, if anything at all.
Okay.
Today we're going to be talking about
pain point SEO in a really specific way.
We thought it would be interesting
in addition to our normal episodes
to kind of do a few episodes
like this, where we go into the
fundamentals of what we do, which is.
Content that is bottom of funnel
and creates conversions in these
little kind of bite sized ways.
And we're going to start with the first
type or category of bottom of funnel
content called category keywords that
we're going to argue and show examples
of in this episode that we think
everyone should basically be going after.
Uh, before we get into it as a reminder,
if you like this, whether you're watching
on YouTube, Apple podcasts, or Spotify.
Take a minute to subscribe if you
rate us on one of the podcast ones or
like us on YouTube or leave a comment
that would be even more, um, good.
And if you want also updates when we do
our data analysis and long form written
posts and case studies, you can join
our email newsletter at growandconvert.
com slash newsletter or click
on newsletter on the top right.
Category keywords.
Let me start by just doing a general
overview on pain point SEO for everyone.
We have a much longer video or maybe
multiple on our YouTube channel.
Uh, if you want to check it out
there, and then of course, all
of this is at growandconvert.
com slash SEO slash pain point SEO.
You can just Google pain
point SEO, um, and get to it.
Basically in short, our entire thesis
of doing content in a way that produces
leads and conversions is based around
producing bottom of funnel content,
which we define as content that ranks
for terms that the act of Googling
that term suggests the person is
ready or whatever in the mood could be
convinced for your product or service.
And we have three subcategories there.
Uh, that I'm showing to people that are
watching on YouTube, our sort of reverse
marketing funnel schematic on our pain
point SEO blog post number one category
keywords, which we're going to talk about
today, number two, comparison alternatives
and number three jobs to be done.
Keywords category keywords, Benji, do you
want to start by defining for everyone
at least what you think or a good
definition of what category keywords are?
Yeah, they're, they're just keywords
that define what your product does.
Uh, so that could be a feature.
It could be the larger category.
So for us, it would be, we're
a content marketing agency.
Um, but then there's nuances in
terms of how you describe it.
And so if your target customer
of your content marketing agency,
we're primarily SaaS businesses.
Then you could get into
more specifics and say.
The actual category is we're a SaaS
content marketing agency, or we're a
bottom of the funnel content marketing
agency, and all these descriptors are
going to help clarify the category and,
and typically lead to better customers
coming from the content that you produce.
Yeah, it's, it's like the, the basic
thing that You are the people would
be googling if they're looking exactly
for your the particular product you're
selling or service So the next thing
I want to talk about before we go into
some examples is and this is gonna
start to get into it There aren't just
one type of category keyword There's
like you're a main thing, but we have
discovered from doing this work That
there's actually all these different
ways you can call a specific product.
In particular for folks that have
SaaS businesses or work inside SaaS
businesses or have SaaS clients.
It is very common these days
for a particular SaaS company to
brand themselves as a platform.
Like it feels like every
VC pushes their portfolio.
SaaS companies to be a platform,
aka shove as many features
into this thing as possible.
Say you're going after
enterprise clients, whatever.
What that means is.
Like category keywords.
You should think about it,
not just as like your space.
Like, it's not like, you know, we
sell some, we're going to look at,
at, at gong in the sales space.
It's not just like we sell like
this, you know, like sales software.
Yes.
That's like technically speaking category,
but like every feature you have, if it
transcribes sales calls, transcription
software is a category keyword with some
specificity, um, or what have you, right.
There's like a bunch of other things.
It's like.
So, yeah, I'll describe it again
in the context of our own business.
So I think main category keywords,
what, what, what we define as main.
So again, going back to the content
marketing agency, content marketing
agency would be one SaaS content marketing
agency would be one potentially e
commerce content marketing agency would
be one, then the side category keywords.
So.
It's not a vertical that we service
too often, but you could, you could
think healthcare content marketing
could be a side category keyword.
It's not, well, I would call that layer
of specificity side to me would be
like, if we said, Hey, we're a content
agency, but some people Googling for an
SEO agency may actually be open to us.
Yeah, there's different ways
that we could describe that.
Cause I was going to say layer of
specificity would be like conversion
focused content marketing agency.
Something that really indicates
someone is looking for a service
exactly like what you do.
Um, so our bottom of the funnel content
marketing agency, as you start to
grow that terminology, people that
are searching for that, you, you want
to show them exactly what you do and
create a page that would go after that.
So yeah, the, the, the strict definitions
can vary a little bit, but that's, that's
kind of the way that we're thinking
about this when we're thinking of these.
So you have these main keywords and
then you have things that are a little
bit outside of the core business.
And that's why I said for us.
It's like we don't do health care content
marketing per se, but it's valuable
for us to own that keyword because we
do have some health care clients that
we had really successful results for.
And so getting more businesses like
that would be very valuable to us.
What I'm showing here for folks that are
only listening is I'm showing a graph,
um, in a study that Meg and our team, Um,
and I did a while back where we looked
at the average conversion rates of tons,
like 90 some blog posts going after a
bunch of keywords that had like a ton
of visitors across a bunch of clients.
And we're looking at these
average, um, conversion rates.
We found main category keywords
like the thing that a product or
services was converting near 5%.
And by the way, this is converting
to what converting to a product
conversion for different clients.
It's very different things.
So yes, there's a little bit of like.
What does it really mean when you average
and some clients, a conversion meant
requesting a demo and some clients,
it was a free trial and other clients,
it was reach out to a sales team.
And some were SaaS, some were self
serve, some were just non SaaS, whatever.
Yes.
There's some like weirdness there.
Um, but this gives us a sense
comparatively of conversion potential
of different types of keywords.
And just to level set you.
Um, If you have not intentionally
done bottom of funnel type SEO
like this and gone after these
keywords, chances are your, your
content is converting at like 0.
1%, if anything at all, you can actually
scroll to the top of our pain point
SEO post and look at this analytic
screenshot that shows, um, Things that
are the three non boxed or the non
boxed posts were converting barely
at all and the conversion rates are
on the second to right hand column.
So just like 5 percent is very
good across dozens of posts.
Side category keywords were converting
much less, a little bit less than 2.
5%.
Category plus layer of specificity
was somewhere in between at like 2.
6, 2.
7%.
For folks that are watching on YouTube,
you can immediately see the comparison
and alternative and versus keywords,
which will be another video, which we'll
get into convert higher 7 percent plus.
We'll talk about why, um, in that
video, but just Don't feel that
because your eye sees some higher bar
graphs right now that somehow category
keywords are not high conversion rate.
Again, if you are not doing this
in a systematic way, chances are
your conversion rates are like
less than a quarter of a percent.
Why?
Because we've seen that
in countless clients.
We see that itself.
So, this is sort of the idea
of the category keywords.
We're going to go into and
use Gong as an example.
Gong.
io is this kind of famous sales
software, um, that was all around,
like, sales calls, recording sales
calls, transcribing, helping people,
like, coach salespeople on it.
Since then, it has become, their
homepage right now just has been AI
ified where like every SaaS company
needs to somehow talk about how they're
like AI first or something, something
I disagree with and think is kind
of silly, but that's their decision.
They are not a client.
Um, I just did a LinkedIn post a while
back talking and doing an analysis
of their keyword strategy because
there's some really interesting things
and we're going to use a part of that
here to talk about category keywords.
Specifically.
They are doing a great job systematically
going after category keywords with feature
or landing pages on their marketing site.
So I'm now showing an AHRF
screenshot looking at the
top keywords are ranking for.
Sorted by, I think, like age
refs determining traffic.
So it's a function of search
volume and then how either ranking
for each of these keywords.
And if you notice something specific to
foreshadow a future video, we're going
to do, I'm only looking at pages on our
site that don't have blog in it because
as I argue in my LinkedIn posts that
you can look up later, um, or we'll
link to their blog actually is just
going after top of the funnel stuff.
So if we look at some of these,
Here are examples of just like
really great category keyword SEO
from Gong call recording software.
Actually, let's get to that in a second.
I think the most, one of the most
like sort of hard to argue against
category keywords Gong is ranking for
is conversation intelligence software.
We've had some clients kind of
near this space or arguably in it.
And so in general, that term conversation
intelligence, you know, Very general sense
is referring to a bunch of software that
like analyzes, transcribes using AI finds
like trends and all this in recordings.
And that's obviously very
useful for salespeople.
And that's like kind of.
At the core of what Gong does.
Go ahead.
You were saying something.
Yeah, no, I was going to say this is
probably a good place to talk about.
I think Gong itself would argue that
they want to be positioned more around
conversation intelligence because
it kind of up levels what they do.
Again, it's, it's, it's more
than just call recording.
It's.
Analyzing these conversations,
giving salespeople data to
make decisions off of it.
It's more comprehensive and it's like a
platform play versus some of these other
keywords might seem more simplistic.
So sales call software,
call recording software.
Oftentimes when we pitch those keywords
to some clients, clients will be pushed
back on us and say, You know what?
We don't want to go after call recording
software because our software is way more
comprehensive than just call recording.
Call recording is just one feature
in there, but we we want to be known
as like a conversation intelligence
software or revenue intelligence
software, these higher level categories.
And so we just don't even think
it's worth it to go after these.
The reason it makes sense to go after
these is because Some people don't
know about this higher level category
when they're searching for this.
They have a need around call recording.
They have a need around sales
coaching or some of the specific
features inside of there.
And when you actually go in and
write the post, you can set up the
positioning in the way that you want.
That says, if you're searching
for, Recording software.
This is one feature in a
more comprehensive platform.
And you can explain how call recording
goes in tandem with all the other
feature sets that make the product
so much better than just a simple
call recording piece of software.
So oftentimes companies will shy away
from these simplistic features and
going after some of these software
keywords, just because they think
that people will perceive them as.
Like, I guess a simpler solution,
um, but these convert really highly.
And so all this to say, you should go
after these, even if your positioning
is different from these, these keywords.
So just, just to clarify, you're saying
take two of these examples on the screen.
Now they're like, go
back to their homepage.
Like, I think this will
drive the point home.
So if you look at how they,
just to read this out loud for
people that are just listening.
Their homepage headline
says the AI platform that
transforms your revenue growth.
That actually is just so general.
I'm sorry.
That headline is pretty bad, but the,
the, the sub, the sub heads a little
bit more descriptive if we go up.
Yeah.
So like you, you can just see,
well, let me read it out for people.
Engage customers, forecast accurately
and improve team productivity all in
one revenue intelligence platform.
Okay.
So you can just tell by their headline
that They want to be known as like
revenue growth and revenue intelligence
that that's kind of how they're trying
to position themselves So again again
a different category than I think what
they used to be positioned as was just
more sales sales software But if we go
back to what you were saying So like I'm
seeing them what Ahrefs is showing them
ranking number four for the term revenue
intelligence just And the side is that
it doesn't have the word software in it.
So maybe it wouldn't be like a pure
growing convert category keyword, but
just the point you're making is that
is easy for leadership or in the case
of your story, clients to get behind.
If the SEO team employee agency like
us says, Hey, let's go after this.
We're going to rank you for the term
revenue intelligence or hypothetically in
this case, revenue intelligence software.
But you're saying that's all fine
and good, but a mistake people
make is then stopping there and not
going after, for example, sales call
recording software or from like a Or
sales call software, which like from
like a sex appeal standpoint, just
seems so boring is what you're saying.
And then leadership is like, we don't
want to, we're not, we don't want to
position ourselves as sales call software.
That's not what we are.
We're a revenue intelligence,
AI transformation platform.
Yeah.
So, so I think the mistake people
make is they look at that keyword and
they would say that positions us as
way too simplistic of a product when
the keyword is not positioning you.
That, that's the mistake that people make.
You want to show up when people are
searching for a solution to their problem.
So they, they have a problem.
They need help with cold calling.
You don't, you don't necessarily
know exactly what the problem is when
they're searching for that keyword,
but you can kind of back into it.
And then in the, before you move
on, say that again, you said the
keyword does not position you.
Yes.
So cold calling software, if someone is
searching for a cold calling software.
That doesn't mean that your product
is just cold calling software.
It means they're searching for a
solution to help them with cold calling.
And then the way that you can, the way
that you can help position yourself is
then in the actual writing of the piece
going after cold calling software, you
can make the argument that the cold
calling piece is just whatever the
feature set is around cold calling.
This is just one part
of the overall platform.
Um, That helps people with cold calling.
And so that positioning and how you
communicate the value of your product
and the category you're in can happen in
the piece itself, but the keyword doesn't
mean that you're positioned like that.
And that's, that's the mistake
that a lot of people make.
So again, going back to the example
of our agency, we're trying to own the
keyword healthcare content marketing.
That doesn't mean that we're a healthcare
content marketing agency, or that's
the only vertical that we service.
But it's one vertical that we can help in,
in our overall content marketing agency.
So like, so the objection you're
seeing would be like me being like,
no, Benji, we can't go after it.
Cause we don't want to, we don't
want to project to the world that all
we are is a health care marketing.
Exactly.
But, but that positioning gets
taken care of in the piece.
So in, in the, in the article, you
would say we've had a number of
clients in the healthcare space, right?
Here's how the strategy differs
from what we normally do for our
SaaS clients and then make the case
why you're good for that vertical.
And, and so the positioning doesn't come
off as we only service healthcare clients.
It's just one of the things that we do.
And I think that's the same thing for any
of these keywords here that maybe your
core offering isn't around sales coaching.
Maybe your core offering isn't
around sales call recording.
It's like this larger.
Your platform is a way larger
piece of software and these are
just small features in there.
But that positioning gets taken
care of in the writing of the piece.
And again, the mistake that people
make is just not going after
these because they don't want to
be perceived as just one feature.
Yeah, yeah.
But the feature Is what
people are looking for.
Yeah.
So that's fine.
As Benji is saying, when we write
the piece, you can talk about
your branding and how you're
this bigger thing or whatever.
But if people are literally looking
for this and it's something your
software does, AKA feature, then
you're just leaving customers at the
table that by not showing up in that
discussion, when they're looking
for it, I think we have seen this.
More often in SaaS clients, I
think you would agree, and I
think it would behoove them.
If you're having those reservations or you
end up having those reservations and you
remember this conversation, um, I think
it would behoove you to think more like,
e commerce brands and seo They don't mind
if one product of a thousand product store
is ranking for whatever whatever right
if they sell a bunch of different Apparel
like it's a department store Macy's.
com home depot.
com of course wants to rank for like You
know best drill bits or whatever and they
don't shy away from it I think you should
start thinking about SaaS people Seem to
feel like they need to like everything
needs to position their brand in this very
specific way it's like There's just like a
lot of discussion in SaaS about like Your
brand differentiator and they're just like
kind of thinking a little bit too much
in that respect from this Yeah The last
thing I want to cover here Well, it, this
is unrelated to the gong example, actually
this, now you said e commerce and I think
e commerce is actually a very good example
of this is just getting more specific
in terms of your category keywords.
And so again, a mistake a lot of people
make is, let's say you had, uh, a
running shoe company that was targeted
towards men that have wide feet.
So again, very specific.
You created this because you realize
most of the running shoes out there
are for people that have normal feet
or skinny feet and your feet hurt
cause you have extremely wide feet.
So you're trying to go after this.
The mistake that a lot of people
make then is just they would, they
would target keywords like men's
running shoes or men's running
shoes, size or something like that.
But again, going, bringing those
clarifiers in men's running shoes
for wide feet, Is a way is a way
better keyword for you to target
than just men's running shoes.
Because there's going to be, if you were
to go after men's running shoes, there's
only going to be a small subset of those
people searching for that, that are
going to have wide feet that your product
is going to be a good solution for.
But if, if you just owned men's running
shoes for people with wide feet, like
that, that longer variation, you know,
that all the people clicking in there
are going to be a potential Good fit
for the product that you're selling.
And so I just challenge people to
really think through all the keyword,
the category keyword variations
where they can get very specific.
So if you have men as your customer is
like 80 or 90 percent as men, or same
thing with women, make sure to put women's
running shoe or men's running shoe.
And then as many clarifiers for wide feet
for, I don't know, warts or like whatever
issue that you have that the product
solves for, Um, that should be included
in the keyword and the keyword strategy.
And I would say that's a huge mistake
that people make is just going after
the obvious ones, but then not really
thinking through what are the specific,
uh, keyword attributes that would
lead the right person to our product.
Yeah.
I think, um, that example is a perfect
example of why we call this one of the
reasons we call this pain point SEO.
What you were adding to.
Men's running shoes was the
pain point that that product
was solving for wide feet.
And you can think of this in
a variety of different ways.
And I was scrolling to this deep dive into
specific category, keywords, conversion
rates that Meg did in this post, where
she looked at how, if you get the
specificity exactly right, you can get.
Just ridiculously high,
um, conversion rates.
So she has like business
size cost and industry.
And I think, yeah, so you can think
of, I could, you could think business
size would be Small business accounting
software, enterprise accounting software.
That's, that's the clarity around the
business side that that's specificity.
Yeah.
And for people that aren't seeing it,
what we're looking at is a bar graph
for, you know, like a particular one
was converting or a couple of them are
converting at six and a half percent,
much higher than some of the other ones.
So like sometimes business size doesn't
convert well, but if you hit it exactly
right, it can, because again, like.
If you sell, in that example you just
used, accounting software that happens
to have features that are perfect for
small business, it may convert really well
because if you write the post well, you
should be, like, really, like, hitting
all the pain points of small business
owners being like, Yeah, like, QuickBooks
and all this are too complicated.
Great.
Like, you have one that's
better for me or whatever.
And then cost specific is like, free, I
think, was probably, like, one of these.
And then industry specific, I forget
which one was converting at 15%, but
that would be like, software for dentists
or for entrepreneurs or whatever.
And so, yeah, so to even get this, you
just have to think about who are the
best customers in my customer base.
And then what clarifiers
could I add to the keyword to
try to attract those people?
I think that's the key.
The other one I would just
wanted to briefly mention is
just pay attention to synonyms.
We talked about adding pain points.
We talked about adding specificity.
You have to kind of look there like
we see some examples from gong ranking
for both revenue management software,
revenue intelligence platform, the
term revenue intelligence in general,
um, revenue intelligence software
versus revenue intelligence platform.
A trust is looking at them
as different keywords.
Pay attention to them, look at
them, see if the same poster
ranking for both of them.
But in general, the last kind of
takeaway I'll leave you with before
we close is And I'll go back to this
going example is intentionality, being
systematic, intentional, and thorough.
This is not an accident.
Like I, we have no relationship with Gong.
I just use this as an example, because,
you know, if you use a client example,
like, I don't know, like, I don't want to
share all of our clients, um, strategies
because they hired us and we have side
note, we have, um, Um, actual evidence
of when we've published some case studies
and like shown every little detail of like
clients competitors that happen to read
Grown Convert that like try to copy it.
So I just picked a famous company
Gong and like looked at their content.
Um, so we have no affiliation with them.
So I don't know what's
behind it, but I know SEO.
I know bottom of funnel SEO.
We've been doing this for a long
time with a bajillion clients.
This is not an accident.
You don't just stumble upon this
by creating a marketing site,
adding your natural feature and
solution pages, and then like
sprinkling some keywords in there.
No way.
If you click into one of them, like
we clicked into one of them, call,
call recording cold call software.
It's like a specific landing page
called call software voted number one
cold calling software by sales pros.
Like.
This is an intentional strategy.
You should approach it that way.
This is, you're not going to accidentally
rank this and then don't just have it.
Just, just be your homepage.
Think through everything
we've said in this video.
What are my specific, uh, modifiers?
What are my pain point modifiers?
What are these side category keywords?
Like if we call ourselves a content
agency, what if we rank for SEO agency?
What if we even, we're not actually
doing this, but like in theory, what if
we just went after for content writing
agency or digital marketing agency even.
Yeah.
Or strategy.
Like if we rank for that, like we
could, we could convert some of
those leads, , because everyone
else they're talking to is not good.
So like.
Think through that systematically and
then decide what pages to go after.
And the last thing is these examples
from Gong are feature and solution
pages as per the LinkedIn post.
And as for what we've done, you
can go after them with blog posts.
You don't need fancy landing pages with
this design and the designer and like,
blah, blah, blah, and like coding.
You don't need that.
You can, you can go after and rank for
category keywords, even if when you
Google it, the first 10 results, page
one is dominated by other people's
landing page or feature pages.
Again, we're not going to go through
and show client examples here.
Cause we have to go through all kinds
of ropes to like get approval for that.
Um, but we have trust
us countless examples.
And I think that's probably
somewhere on our blog.
Of blog posts ranking and
converting extremely well for
these types of category keywords.
Go ahead.
I was talking over you.
Um, yeah, well just on the last
point, yeah, you can search for
landing pages versus blog posts.
And you, we have a post that has a bunch
of data about how we're able to see as
high, if not higher conversion rates from
blog posts over landing pages, which.
covers an objection that most people have.
Why not just create a landing
page to go after this?
And then the last thing I'll say, just
doubling back on the synonyms thing.
Just think of all the variations of things
that someone could potentially describe
your business as and go after all of them.
That, that is what I would say.
So, um, yeah, like ask your customers,
if you were searching for this in
Google, How would you search for this?
Like, what would you
think of our business as?
And you'll find that your, your company
and people inside your business often
think of your your service offering,
your product offering is something
different than your customers or
might call it something different.
And so you want to think of all those
variations and go after all of them.
You like this video.
Don't forget to subscribe.
You can also get the audio only
versions of these shows wherever
you get your podcasts and you
can follow us at growandconvert.
com slash newsletter for any articles and
updates for when these videos come out.