Customer Pain Points Matter - How Solving Them Can Boost SEO Strategy
A comprehensive guide on what it means to address customer pain points
In today’s digital world, your content must answer their most pressing pain points and provide a pleasant and satisfying experience. When I first started writing, I was more focused on search engine optimization (SEO) tactics like adding keywords or backlinks.
However, with the latest Google updates, choosing to continue this practice can have adverse effects on your ranking. Your primary focus should be on understanding and resolving their biggest pain points.
In this article, we’ll examine what customer pain points are, why solving them is crucial for a successful SEO strategy, and how you can identify your audience’s specific challenges and address them effectively.
1. What are customer pain points?
The other day, I went to a website looking for a specific product the company advertised. I was very interested in it but couldn’t find it on their site. That is just one pain point that a customer can experience.
When a customer is not able to find the product, service, or answer to what they’re looking for, that is a customer pain point. Not every customer is the same. There are four different areas where you may need to improve your delivery. These include:
1. Financial pain points
Examples include expensive subscription plans, pricey membership fees, low-quality products needing frequent replacement, and more.
2. Productivity pain points
These pain points are associated with efficiency and will cause friction. The friction can occur anywhere. If it adds redundancy or makes buying, support, or usage less than ideal, the customer may become frustrated.
3. Process pain points
If your processes don’t run efficiently, you will cause friction. It may not be with everyone, but some customers won’t be happy, and you will need to tighten up your small to medium business (SMB) customer strategy.
4. Support pain points
How many times have you clicked on a knowledge library or a help link, only to find out your answer to your inquiry is not addressed? This shows how important your customer pain strategy is to ensure all links work.
Customer support pain solutions can include the following:
Can’t find or access customer support – I mentioned this above.
Unhelpful support agents or chatbots – Are your support agents helpful and knowledgeable?
Inconvenient communications channels – Does the customer have to wait too long for initial contact? Do you have a variety of communication channels (email, text, chatbots, etc., and do you know which method your customer prefers?
Inability to self-service – Is your knowledge database up to date with current information?
Customers experience pain points across multiple industries.
2. Why Solving Customer Pain Points Boosts SEO
To begin with, Google Search ranks valuable and original content in Internet search results. It’s up to you to make your visitor's visit to your website as pleasant and satisfying as possible.
As a result of Google’s recent helpful content update (HCU), HCU analyzes your entire website, not page-by-page. One of the overriding premises of HCU is that you write helpful content that is helpful – and current. In addition, creating helpful content should also follow content that follows the E-E-A-T guidelines.
There are four reasons that addressing customer pain solutions will boost SEO. Let’s look at them:
1. Relevancy and reliability
Google notices when you go out of your way to provide relevant and reliable information to your customers. Incorporating a sound customer SEO strategy will keep customers on your website longer, which moves us to the next reason your SEO will be improved.
2. User trust and satisfaction
Users rely on search engines to find accurate and trustworthy information and solve questions they have. If they can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll exit your site in favor of a competitor that can.
3. Credibility and reputation
As a small to medium business, you must ensure that your credibility and reputation are squeaky clean. Otherwise, your customers will be sure to share how you did not help them. This affects your brand. Don’t let it happen to you.
4. Better user experience
A positive user experience will ensure users will return to read your high-quality and reliable content. As a result, this can lead to more extended website visits, lower bounce rates, and increased engagement metrics, all favorable signals to boost SEO strategy.
A great example of a customer pain point being solved is a case study by Verint. One of their customers, Rue21, implemented Voice of the Customer (VoC) solutions to gather customer feedback through various channels.
By integrating this feedback into their customer experience (CX) strategy, the retailer Rue21 identified and addressed pain points, such as difficulties in navigation and product search. As a result, they achieved a notable increase in both their Net Promoter Score (NPS) and sales, directly boosting customer satisfaction and SEO rankings.
3. How to Identify Your Customers’ Pain Points
This section will focus on how you can identify your customers’ pain points. There are several ways you can do this. Let’s look at three methods.
Research Methods: You can include customer reviews, surveys, forums, and social media to determine what pain points are prevalent in your industry.
Competitor Analysis: Another method you can use is through a competitive analysis. This approach isn't just about keeping an eye on the other players; it's a fundamental step in identifying your customers and their pain points.
Keyword Tools: Finally, using SEO tools to uncover problem-based searches is a winner for finding elusive questions customers have asked. My favorite SEO tool is Answer the Public. This is the one tool that every content writer should have in their tool arsenal. It automatically collects and tracks important questions that are being answered on Google.
4. Creating Content That Solves Pain Points
Now that we’ve looked at how to identify your customers’ pain points, you are ready to create content that solves their pain points. But how do you accomplish that?
Crafting a detailed, eye-catching description that directly speaks to their pain points will not only grab their attention. It will also build their trust and credibility. It's all about creating value and offering solutions.
To begin with, we will look at three types of pain point content:
1. How to blog posts
A blog post that answers how to do something is an effective way to provide great SEO pain point solutions. You should state the pain you are going to solve and then explain how you are going to do that.
2. Competitor comparison pages
Useful for identifying unique qualifiers between two products or services. For example, you could do a comparison between Intuit QuickBooks and Freshbooks.
It is critical that you explain the differences between the two competitors and which solution is going to solve your customer’s pain points.
3. “Alternatives to” pages
It can be done as list-style posts where you list several alternatives to a competitor (including your own) and detail how they’re different.
When creating content that solves pain points, there are three things you need to cover. You must tailor your content to cover your customer’s specific frustration, show empathy, and balance your SEO strategy with valuable solutions.
5. Integrating pain points into your SEO strategy
The best way to integrate pain points into your SEO content strategy is to talk to your customers. This can be through surveys, one-on-one discussions, reviews, or through Chatbot discussions. Your goal should be to pinpoint any pain points your customer is experiencing.
Now, let’s integrate those pain points and others you uncover into your SEO strategy. You will be able to use this as a checklist.
Once you have collated the pain points, take the time to create your content and offer solutions.
Do additional research on those pain points so you thoroughly understand them.
Write high-quality, relevant, and unique content that speaks to your customer’s concerns.
Use emotional triggers. These emotional triggers can be positive or negative and really speak to the customer. Emotional triggers can elicit fear, happiness, anger or frustration, guilt, love, or compassion.
Test your content thoroughly and make edits. Make sure your links work properly.
Constantly review your SEO strategy to uncover gaps, technical issues, or potential opportunities that may arise.
Whenever possible, include FAQs, guides, and case studies to further customer pain solutions.
Wrap Up
Your customer pain points do matter. Your primary focus should be on understanding and resolving those pain points.
In our discussion, we discussed what customer pain points are, why solving them is crucial for a successful SEO strategy, how you can identify your audience’s specific challenges, and finished up with how to create and integrate their pain points into your content.
Remember who is the most important party in your SEO strategy when it all comes down to it. It’s the customer. Google will reward you with a better ranking if you satisfy customer needs, issues, and desires.
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Super helpful article - thanks Pam!