How to reach the first spot on Google?

A major mistake most marketing teams make: producing content to drive traffic instead of conversions. Let me talk about Pain-Point SEO in this post—a different strategy with far higher conversions. When I say "conversions," I mean signing up for a product/service or filling out a form, not subscribing to an email list or newsletter.

Most blogs try to rank for keywords that have no intent. A good conversion rate is over 3%.

Now, if you look at your analytics, you will notice that only a few of your blog posts drive most of the traffic, but those posts are not driving most of your conversions. What is causing this disconnect?

High-volume queries are usually the terms targeting the top of the funnel: very few searches carry intent.

On average, lower-volume keywords tend to be bottom-of-funnel terms: fewer people searching, but with higher purchase intent.

Another benefit is that it is easy to rank, since your competitors are not trying to rank for low-volume keywords.

Therefore, it seems that the way to go about it is understanding buyers' intent, their pain points, and finding keywords and topics that speak to solutions for the problem the searcher is trying to solve.

Now then, how do you generate those ideas?

I use these 5 frameworks to start:

Comparison Messaging: This framework objectively compares your product or service against your main competitors.

Best products or services lists: this framework helps searchers discover the best products or services in the category they are looking for.

‘X’ Alternatives: this framework helps searchers discover alternatives to a competitor's products.

Pricing Comparison Posts: These discuss your competitors' pricing and follow up with your product or service.

Product or service use cases: this framework helps searchers discover how to solve a problem they have and introduces your product or service as a potential solution.

Now that you know the frameworks you should think in, I want to share how you get the ideas that fit into those frameworks.

Essentially, all ideas should come from your customers and prospects. If you know your customers inside and out, you'll be able to develop content ideas.

A few ways to do it

1. Start writing down the objections you hear on sales calls. And try to find keywords around them.

2. Talk to them formally/informally, and make them your friends. Ask them who they consider your competitors, what problems your solution will solve for them, and which features bring them the most value.

3. Use survey questions to identify conversion-focused SEO topics to write about. Make sure all of these questions have open-ended responses. You don't want to lead people to an answer; you want them to share their thoughts with you. You should see a wide range of responses, and then you will want to prioritize the responses you get multiple times.

What strategy are you using?