Enterprise SEO in 2025: Key Trends and Strategies to Stay Ahead

Successful SEO content should act as a guide – not just around your website, but for users on their specific journey to answers and solutions.

Visitors to your website arrive with different intentions and levels of awareness.

Some may be casually browsing your site for the first time, others might be actively researching your products or services, and others may be on the verge of making a purchase.

So, what should you do to ensure your website caters to these diverse goals and needs? And how should you use content to facilitate the journey from early-stage prospect to repeat customer?

The answer: content mapping.

In this post, we’ll cover the importance of content mapping for SEO and explain how to develop a content strategy that helps transform visitors into customers.

Let’s dive in.

What Is Content Mapping?

Content mapping is the process of aligning content with the specific needs of your target audience at various stages of the buyer’s journey.

It involves defining your audience, understanding what content they need at different phases of the decision-making process, and delivering that content to guide them from initial awareness to a purchase decision (and beyond).

In other words, content planning is about organizing your site so that the right content reaches the right user at the right time.

Why Is Content Mapping Important For SEO?

Creating a content map can bolster your SEO efforts in multiple ways. Here are the key reasons content mapping matters for SEO.

Better Content Relevance And Targeting

Google aims to surface the most relevant results it can find for users’ search queries.

The more relevant the content, the more likely it is to rank higher in search results.

Content mapping helps increase your content’s relevance by aligning it with the search intentions of your target audience at different stages of the buying journey.

Increased User Engagement

Relevant content that directly addresses the goals and needs of visitors is also more engaging.

Better engagement means longer session durations, lower bounce rates, and more frequent interactions – all of which signal to Google that your site is a quality source of content worth ranking prominently in its search results.

Improved Keyword Optimization

Content mapping involves identifying the keywords your prospects use along the buyer’s journey.

Once you know which keywords people use at various stages of the customer lifecycle, you can incorporate those terms into the appropriate pages on your website.

Targeting a broad range of keywords lets you cater to a broader range of user intentions and boosts your organic visibility.

Structured Content Delivery

A well-planned content map helps create a clear and organized content architecture for your site.

A logical site structure improves user experience and makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your pages correctly.

Moreover, strategic linking between thematically-related content can enhance your site’s authority for particular topics.

Support For Content Updates

A content map provides a complete overview of your site’s content, laying out the relationship between different pieces of content and their respective stages in the buyer’s journey.

With a map in hand, it’s easier to see which parts of your site are outdated or underperforming and to spot new opportunities to develop more content.

Remember, search engines favor fresh, up-to-date content, which can help maintain or improve your rankings over time.

How To Create An Effective Content Map In 6 Steps

Now, let’s break down the content mapping process.

1. Define Your Buyer Personas

The first step is to develop a clear understanding of your various customer segments.

The better you understand your ideal customers’ needs, goals, motivations, and objections, the easier it will be to create content that serves them.

The goal here is to create buyer personas (or customer avatars) that represent your target audience.

Start by gathering as much information as possible on your existing customers through surveys, interviews, customer service data, and website analytics.

Look for demographic data such as age, location, income level, and psychographic data, including personal interests, buying preferences, and lifestyle choices. Learn the challenges that lead them to seek products and services like yours.

Once you’ve collected this data, it’s time to build out your buyer personas. Each persona should be detailed and specific, like this:

Buyer Persona: “Digital Marketer Dan”

• Demographics: Age 32, lives in San Francisco, single, masters in marketing.
• Professional role: Senior digital marketing manager at a tech startup.
• Goal: To increase brand awareness and lead generation through innovative digital strategies.
• Challenges: Struggles with limited budget and resources; needs tools that maximize ROI.
• Behavioral traits: Highly active on LinkedIn, relies on industry blogs and webinars for ongoing education.
• Decision factors: Prioritizes cost-effective software and tools with strong user support.
• Preferred content types: Enjoys in-depth guides, case studies, and free webinars.

Here is a sample buyer persona we developed for my agency, HigherVisibility:

Screenshot from author, May 2024

2. Map Out The Buyer’s Journey

The next step is to map out the customer journey for each of your personas. This will guide you in creating content that meets the needs of different personas at every stage of the decision-making process.

Typically, the customer journey is made up of three main phases:

• Awareness: Here, the persona first becomes aware of a problem or need. For example, “Digital Marketer Dan” realizes he needs to improve his digital marketing ROI. He heads to Google for ideas and clicks through to one of your blog’s educational posts discussing various digital marketing strategies.
• Consideration: At this point, your persona will be evaluating different solutions to their more fundamental problem. For example, Dan has realized that his team needs a new digital marketing platform to optimize campaigns more effectively. Now, he’s researching the features and benefits of different tools to see which solution can best meet his needs. To get a better sense of what your company offers, Dan reads through a few of your comparison guides and watches your product demonstration videos.
• Decision: In this final phase, your persona has considered their options and is primed to make a buying decision. For example, Dan is now almost ready to buy. To alleviate any last-minute concerns, he reads through positive feedback from other customers on your testimonials page and then finally reaches for his bank card.

Read more: How To Create A Customer Journey Map

3. Map Existing Content To Different Stages Of The Buyer’s Journey

Now, it’s time to categorize your existing content according to where it fits into the customer journey.

A common approach here is to separate content into three buckets:

• Top of the funnel (TOFU): This content caters to visitors in the awareness stage. The goal here isn’t to make a sales pitch. Instead, it’s about providing useful information, establishing your brand as a trustworthy source of insights, and raising awareness that your solution exists. TOFU content includes blog posts, infographics, and educational videos about topics within the remit of your brand.
• Middle of the funnel (MOFU): This content caters to those in the consideration stage. It delves deeper into the benefits and features of your solution, showing visitors how it can help address their problems. Examples include webinars, case studies, and product overviews.
• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): This content is designed to help purchase-ready visitors commit to a final decision. Since users are now familiar with what you can offer them, the goal is to address any lingering objections or questions standing in the way of a sale. BOFU content includes special offers, free trials, shipping and refund policy pages, customer reviews, and testimonials.

4. Optimize Existing Pages For The Right Keywords

After identifying where each page fits into the customer journey, you’ll need to ensure those pages are optimized for the appropriate keywords.

But before you get started, we recommend you first refresh and expand your current keyword list to make it as up-to-date and comprehensive as possible.

The aim is to build a complete picture of the type of queries people use when searching for TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content related to your business. Be sure to include search intent and search volume data in your list.

Once your new keyword list is ready, make sure each page is optimized for a relevant primary keyword if it isn’t already.

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when optimizing your content for keywords:

• Match pages with keyword intent. Only assign a keyword to a page that genuinely addresses the search intent underlying that term. If you don’t yet have a page for a given keyword, you can add it to your content calendar (see Step 6).
• Update meta tags. Adjust the title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags to include your target keyword and any close variants. This not only helps Google understand the page’s relevance but can also encourage more click-throughs from the search results.
• Add keywords to the content. Integrate your target keyword into your content, especially the introduction, conclusion, and headers. All keyword placements should appear natural to the reader. Also, avoid cramming your text with keywords – keyword stuffing is considered spam by search engines and can damage your SEO efforts.
• Avoid keyword cannibalization. When two or more pages from the same website target the same term, search engines have difficulty determining which page to rank. This can dilute the ranking potential of all the competing pages. So, try to make sure that no two pages target the same primary keyword.

Read more: Keyword Research: An In-Depth Beginner’s Guide

5. Update Internal Links Strategically

Internal links are the routes your users take from one page to another. Not only are they essential for site navigation, but they also help distribute link equity (ranking power) from high-authority pages to lower-authority ones.

However, since your website’s ultimate goal is to generate conversions, each page should contain links that direct users to the next step along the buyer’s journey.

For example, suppose your business sells and installs smart home technology.

Your blog post about “Improving Home Security” (TOFU) might contain an in-text link to a related comparison guide about “The Best Smart Home Security Systems of 2024” (MOFU). Likewise, the comparison guide might contain a link directing readers to your testimonials page (BOFU).

6. Identify Content Gaps To Inform Your Editorial Calendar

The next step is to identify opportunities to create new content or add to existing content.

After expanding your keyword list in Step 4, you will most likely find several relevant keywords for which you don’t currently have content. These keywords can form the basis of your new content calendar.

When deciding which keywords to prioritize in your production schedule, keep the following in mind:

• Marketing goals: What is your primary marketing goal? If it’s to generate more traffic and brand awareness, targeting TOFU keywords should be your priority. If the aim is to maximize sales conversion rates, targeting BOFU keywords might be a better option.
• Relevance to your audience: Prioritize keywords that reflect your core audience’s needs. Ask whether there are any topics or questions your buyer personas are likely to have that your content doesn’t currently address.
• Search volume and competition: High-volume keywords are typically harder to rank for. Consider creating content clusters to increase your site’s authority for specific topics. Content clusters involve a central “pillar” page providing an overview of the main topic, which links to multiple “cluster” pieces covering related sub-topics in more depth.

Final Thoughts

Creating a content map is a powerful strategy for any business looking to increase their organic visibility and maximize their website’s ability to attract qualified visitors and convert them into customers.

By understanding and addressing the various needs of your audience throughout the buyer’s journey, you can position your brand as a valuable source of information and guide visitors from initial awareness to making a purchasing decision.

Building a content map requires careful planning and attention to detail. You should treat it as a living document that evolves with your audience’s needs and business goals.

Regularly reviewing and updating your content map will ensure it remains relevant and effective in guiding your content strategy.

More resources:

• How To Create A Content Strategy Framework
• What Is A Conversion Funnel? Optimize Your Customer Journey
• B2B Lead Generation: Create Content That Converts

Featured Image: watchara panyajun/Shutterstock

Gone are the days when AI was merely a distant concept.

Today, AI has already been integrated into our daily lives through various applications and services, transforming how we interact with digital platforms.

A few years ago, AI operated silently behind the scenes, facilitating data processing and optimization for large services.

However, starting in 2023, its presence has become ubiquitous, manifesting in the features and functionalities of the apps and tools we use regularly.

How AI Is Reshaping Our Digital Experience

From iOS 16 Live Text Translation to Gmail Auto-complete, AI has become integral to our digital experiences.

What’s particularly fascinating is the bold strides made in the integration of AI into the very tools we use to create and work.

Consider the emergence of AI-powered image creation tools that generate visuals from textual descriptions or transform sketches into intricate 3D models in real time.

Video creation, once labor-intensive, is now more accessible and creative, thanks to AI-driven algorithms that handle background/object detection and stylization.

My background in design has compelled me to explore how these advancements will reshape our interactions with devices and software.

We are witnessing a shift from the traditional keyboard and mouse interaction towards more natural forms of communication with AI-integrated tools.

This transition from manual inputs to intuitive conversations and descriptions empowers users to become orchestrators of technological capabilities.

Does AI Enhance Or Compromise The Authenticity Of User Interactions?

The ongoing discourse surrounding AI’s role in UX design centers on whether it enhances or compromises the authenticity of user interactions.

Advocates view AI as a transformative force, empowering designers to personalize experiences, predict user behavior, and streamline processes.

Yet, skeptics raise concerns about the potential erosion of genuine human interaction, urging caution against the over-reliance on algorithmic intervention.

The rapid pace of AI innovation necessitates a delicate balance between harnessing its potential and preserving authenticity.

While AI offers unprecedented opportunities, its integration poses ethical dilemmas and challenges UX professionals to navigate complex terrain.

The need for responsible AI adoption underscores the importance of prioritizing user-centric design principles, maintaining transparency, and fostering open dialogue.

As we embrace AI as a tool for innovation, collaboration, and empowerment, we must ensure that it complements – not replaces – human expertise.

Ultimately, the future of UX lies in striking a balanced approach: leveraging AI’s capabilities while preserving the authenticity of user interactions. We must forge a path where technology enhances – rather than compromises – the human experience.

Expanding AI Applications And Their Impact On User Experience

AI is reshaping our interactions with cameras, transcending their traditional role as image-capturing devices.

Equipped with AI algorithms, cameras extend beyond mere photography to recognize QR codes, translate texts, and facilitate visual searches. This evolution transforms the camera into a dynamic input tool, effectively bridging the physical and digital realms.

Consider the Dot-go app, which leverages smartphone cameras to initiate automation processes.

Originally designed to aid visually impaired individuals, this innovative application demonstrates the broader potential of AI-powered cameras to enhance daily experiences for everyone.

From identifying bus routes to calculating calorie intake, AI-powered camera applications offer boundless possibilities for seamless integration into everyday life.

As AI progresses, it will further enrich user experiences through natural interactions such as facial recognition and gesture control. This highlights the importance of striking a balance between automation and human touch.

A Firsthand Look At How AI Empowers Developers

GitHub Copilot exemplifies the fusion of AI and developer collaboration, transcending its role as a mere tool to become a meeting point between developers and AI. (Disclaimer: I worked for GitHub.)

GitHub’s machine learning experts dedicated themselves to enhancing Copilot’s contextual understanding, recognizing effective communication as the linchpin of seamless collaboration.

During my time as GitHub’s SEO manager, I witnessed firsthand the remarkable fusion of AI and developer collaboration during the development phase of Copilot.

More than just a tool, Copilot represents a convergence of minds between developers and their AI pair programming counterparts.

Machine learning experts from GitHub tirelessly researched, developed, and tested new capabilities to enhance Copilot’s contextual understanding.

They recognized that effective communication is essential to pair programming, emphasizing the significance of inferring context to facilitate seamless collaboration.

As a marketing team member, I played a pivotal role in ensuring complete visibility from search to all communications surrounding the project. It was a project that genuinely excited me.

The evolution of Copilot from its inception to its widespread availability represented a paradigm shift in AI-driven coding tools. Leveraging OpenAI’s Codex model, GitHub Copilot emerged as the world’s first generative AI coding tool at scale.

The journey wasn’t just about developing a tool; it aimed to empower developers to focus on meaningful work.

Through meticulous experimentation and iteration, GitHub’s team honed Copilot into a resource that accelerates tasks like code completion and fosters creativity and efficiency.

The collaborative efforts behind Copilot underscored the significance of good user experience and the seamless integration of AI technologies into the developer workflow.

As a result, Copilot continues to revolutionize the way developers work, offering tailored suggestions and insights that amplify productivity and innovation in coding endeavors.

Optimizing The User Journey With Human-AI Collaboration

AI is a pivotal catalyst for personalization, intelligent automation, and predictive analytics in UX design.

By analyzing user data and behavior, AI empowers designers to create bespoke experiences that deeply resonate with individual preferences.

This AI-driven approach fosters engagement, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making, leading to significant improvements in SEO rankings.

Websites prioritizing UX elements tend to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) due to reduced bounce rates, increased dwell time, and enhanced user-interaction metrics.

Thus, integrating AI-driven UX design not only optimizes user satisfaction, but also boosts a website’s visibility and authority in the competitive digital landscape.

However, as with any technological advancement, ethical considerations loom large.

Designers must navigate data privacy, bias, and transparency issues to ensure AI algorithms uphold moral standards and minimize negative impacts on users.

Key Takeaway

AI’s transformative impact on user experience design is undeniable.

By embracing AI’s capabilities and collaborating with skilled experts, designers can harness its potential to deliver exceptional experiences that meet or exceed user expectations in the digital era.

As we continue to innovate and adapt, the synergy between human creativity and AI technology will profoundly shape the future of interaction design.

More resources: 

• AI For SEO: Can You Work Faster & Smarter? 
• Revolutionizing SEO With Google’s Search Generative Experience
• SEO Trends 2024

Featured Image: APHITHANA/Shutterstock

AI can help brands and marketers be more efficient and productive and do things quicker, but it is not perfect and does have some drawbacks.

With the rise and adoption of AI into SEO workflows, processes, and tools, SEO pros must take an ethical approach to artificial intelligence.

What exactly does an ethical approach to AI mean?

An ethical approach involves using AI technologies transparently, fairly, and responsibly while respecting user privacy and ensuring the accuracy and integrity of information.

We are all aware that using AI is imperfect and can be full of inaccurate, biased, fluffy information, etc., which can cause many problems for agencies and marketers that rely on AI to create content.

With the March core update, sites that use AI content that was not edited, original, or helpful lost a substantial portion of organic traffic.

Here are some ways we can use AI to be more ethical.

Be Transparent And Provide Disclosure

Do not use generative AI to create content for publishing. If you use generative AI in parts of your process, you should be fully transparent to the brands you work with about how you use AI in your SEO practices.

Maintain Accuracy And Integrity

If you’re going to use AI, you should take a human-led approach to writing long-form content. Humans should always do the content creation, but AI can be helpful for brainstorming, organizing, rewording, transcription, and reworking content. In each case, outputs must be checked for originality using Copyscape or the tool of your choice.

Additionally, the information must be trustworthy and accurate. With the HCU being incorporated into the March core update, it’s more important than ever to focus on people-first content rather than content that is not helpful, useful, or satisfying the end user’s intent.

Be Original and Useful

With Google focusing on a good user and people-first content experience, we should not rely on AI content because of the inadequacy in training data, and a lack of originality. AI could be great for compiling a list of notes from people with first-hand experience and pulling them into a cohesive article, for example, but not to produce the list and facts, even with fact-checking.

Follow Compliance With Search Engine Guidelines

It’s imperative that we follow search engine guidelines and ethical standards.

AI should not be used to engage in practices like keyword stuffing, cloaking, or creating doorway pages. Instead, it should support the creation of high-quality and useful content.

Take a look at Google AI Principles – Google AI.

Promote Positive Impact

Ethically using AI in SEO also means considering the broader impact on society. This entails promoting trustworthy, useful content that contributes positively to users’ knowledge and well-being.

Develop Safely & Respect Privacy

If you build your own tools and platforms with AI, ensure you have strong security protocols and practices to prevent causing any harm.

Always assess your technologies before launching them into the production environment to ensure they are safe and secure. Ensure to continue monitoring it after it is released to the general public.

LLMs are not secure. It may be necessary to get legal advice before implementing certain types of AI, like generative AI, in processes that include user/customer information. Updating a privacy policy may not be enough.

Never put proprietary and confidential information into a generative AI chatbot like ChatGPT.  Most LLMs save all user inputs and the information could be used to generate responses to other users.

Respect Intellectual Property & Originality

One of the biggest issues with AI is intellectual property (IP). If I create some content using ChatGPT, who owns it?

We need to ensure that when AI recommends content, it is original and not taken from anywhere else. This can be problematic because some AI platforms don’t list the source of the information unless you specify chatbots to do so.

ChatGPT can tell you where the content sources are coming from if you list them in your prompt. For example, I asked ChatGPT to write me a 750-word blog post on the top things to do in NY and list the sources, and it did.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, April 2024

If you’re getting some information from ChatGPT, you need to credit the source and ensure they’re not copying other people’s content. Also, setting clear rules for using AI in making content can help avoid legal problems and ensure you’re fair and honest.

I checked the content that I created in ChatGPT, and according to Copyscape, it is full of similar text.

Screenshot from Copyscape, April 2024

Note: Please keep in mind that asking LLMs to cite sources doesn’t guarantee you’re citing the right content or that the content is original. The best and safest way to avoid accidental plagiarism is for humans to do the research and write the content.

Google Is Not About Content That Is Artificial And Lacking In Originality

With the rapid growth of AI-based tools entering the market and AI being incorporated into a lot of platforms and being used in daily SEO tasks,  it is extremely important for us to adhere to ethical AI principles to ensure that the use of AI in SEO supports a fair, equitable, and user-focused search ecosystem.

Google has always been about quality and original content that offers value to end users and not content that is fully artificial, offers no value, lacks trust, is thin, duplicate, lacks originality, etc.

In order to compete in today’s competitive and ever-changing SERPs, focusing on improving E-E-A-T is more important than ever before because it is a quality signal that shows Google and end users that you’re the subject matter expert and authority in your niche.

It’s highly recommended to have thought leaders and experts in your niche create your content and show their expertise on your site.

Additionally, it’s important to focus on user experience and ensure that your site loads quickly, is easy to navigate, and helps users find exactly what they came to your site for.

More resources: 

• Navigating The Intersections Of Technology And Human Interaction In AI, User Experience, And SEO
• What Is Quality Data And How It Connects Search, Content, And AI Success
• Leveraging Generative AI Tools For SEO

Featured Image: aniqpixel/Shutterstock

The B2B marketplace has evolved rapidly in recent years due to various global factors, with the pandemic and economic turbulence being the top drivers.

As a result, there has been a notable change in both marketer and buyer priorities in recent years.

Speaking with our clients and partners, I have observed that in 2024, marketers’ top priorities have shifted from personalized outreach to generating sales-ready leads and driving pipeline opportunities.

This likely results from a more evident objective of proving return on investment (ROI), and pressuring marketers to effectively guide prospective clients through the discovery and purchase journey more efficiently.

However, this focus is understandable given the benefits of a stable pipeline with middle (MOFU) and bottom (BOFU) of the funnel leads.

Not only does it offer a consistent avenue for sustained growth, but it also allows sales teams to capitalize on the best opportunities for conversion.

In this guide, I present playbooks we implemented at INFUSE and recommend for B2B organizations in 2024 to effectively address the most common MOFU and BOFU pain points to increase conversions.

The Evolution Of The B2B Buyer

The increasing complexity of the buyer’s journey – a result of buyers taking a largely defensive position in an effort to de-risk their portfolios – has resulted in expanded B2B buying committees, extended sales cycles, and more discerning buyers across buying committees of organizations of all sizes and complexities.

This shift is unsurprising, considering that 83% of buyers initiate first contact with vendors. It suggests that sellers learn about buying processes on the buyer’s terms.

Buying committees are also increasingly younger, with many now comprising Millennials and Gen Z. These generations demonstrate unique buying behaviors compared to their predecessors; they are more independent, tech-native, and display a greater need for autonomy in their client journeys.

In fact, research shows that approximately 70% of the buyer’s journey is now done completely independently, without ever engaging with sales.

These young buyers have also prioritized cloud purchases, particularly due to the effortless integration of low/no-code solutions that allow organizations to build on their purchases in their own time as resources allow.

Addressing Middle-Of-The-Funnel (MOFU) Pain Points

Below is a list of the four most common middle-of-the-funnel pain points and strategies to address these challenges:

1. Lack Of Personalization

Conversions often stall due to a lack of understanding of the key needs buyers face in MOFU, as well as identifying the right timing and messaging to increase velocity to the bottom of the funnel.

Below are four tactics to address this pain point effectively:

Utilize Accurate Targeting With Segmentation

Ensure that prospective buyers are correctly segmented throughout their buyer’s journey.

Adjust targeting as their pain points and goals change to ensure aligned messaging. This can be streamlined with the use of data analytics tools to identify and categorize audiences based on their unique behaviors.

Make Use Of Data Throughout The Buyer’s Journey

It is normal for prospective clients to move freely in their buyer’s journey, often skipping phases or going back to research as needed.

Be sure to continually assess their position using behavioral data and other feedback mechanisms to ensure they receive the correct nurturing for their funnel stage.

Implement Feedback Mechanisms To Understand Prospect Challenges

Set up regular feedback loops via surveys, focus groups, and social listening tools to gather insights.

These can be used to make adjustments and optimize nurturing to target buyers at the right time with relevant messaging on the platforms or channels they frequent.

Find The Right Go-To-Market (GTM) Motion To Lead Your Nurturing And Funnel Efforts

GTM models act as a blueprint for molding an organization’s frameworks.

This involves determining target buyer personas, establishing interdepartmental data processes, and coordinating efforts to ensure a seamless revenue cycle.

Often, organizations have several GTM motions running simultaneously, which can be beneficial to accelerate velocity with certain buyer segments, hone in on the right product-market fit, or test a new market or solution.

2. Limited Budgets

Budgets will consistently remain a focal point, particularly in a time of high expectations – not only for vendors, but internally within organizations and buying committees.

Committee members are tasked with making carefully considered purchases that yield tangible returns, underscoring the importance of budget consciousness.

Below are three tactics to address this pain point effectively:

• Create a tiered pricing structure per persona designed to evolve alongside their budget and requirements. This allows for strategic upsells and cross-sells, maximizing revenue and catering to diverse needs.
• Provide referral programs to accommodate their budgetary requirements (with incentives) while encouraging clients to stimulate top-of-funnel demand.

3. Incorrect Content Or Messaging

When buyers receive content or messaging that is not relevant to their pain points, role, or stage in the buyer’s journey, it diminishes their interest and trust in the brand.

In fact, 47% of buyers reported that the key driver behind opening emails was relevant messaging.

Below are three tactics to address this pain point effectively:

• Deliver the right content to the right audience by tailoring messaging to suit the specific pain points and buyer’s journey stage of each prospect. Utilize customer relationship management systems (CRMs), data analytics, surveys, and other sources of buyer data to build highly personalized nurturing programs.
• Ensure your content is demand-ready by understanding the role of core decision-makers in the buying process and tailoring your content accordingly. In addition, ensure that your messaging is adjusted to the channels they frequent.
• Keep your brand top of mind by engaging buyers early with relevant content that addresses their evolving pain points. Providing answers to frequently asked questions and highlighting distinctive value propositions are essential for driving high engagement rates at the top of the funnel. This, in turn, facilitates the transition toward conversions in the subsequent phases, fostering sustained interest.

4. Single Channel Engagement

Buyers utilize more channels than ever, with the majority engaging with brands on 10 or more channels.

This trend is evident in current B2B buyer behavior, as prospective clients consult a variety of sources before making buying decisions. As a result, organizations that rely solely on single-channel engagement risk overlooking crucial audience segments.

Below are two tactics to address this pain point effectively:

• Omnichannel engagement is a necessity. B2B buyers increasingly seek a seamless omnichannel journey, with 87% preferring a personalized and consistent experience across all channels. To meet this demand, it is important to integrate your sales and marketing efforts across multiple touchpoints, ensuring consistency and continuity throughout the buyer’s journey.
• Email-only does not work anymore. While email remains a fundamental tool in B2B communication, its effectiveness as a standalone channel is fading. With crowded inboxes and evolving buyer preferences, organizations must diversify their communications and invest in strategies across multiple channels to create demand in their market – not just capture it.

Addressing Bottom-Of-Funnel Pain Points

Below is a list of the three most common bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) pain points and strategies on how to address them:

1. Performance Against Competitors

Considering the increased scrutiny of buyers in the current landscape, it comes as no surprise that most buying committees will seek to compare your solution with multiple competitors.

This highlights the importance of establishing key differentiators and demonstrating how your solution best supports your buyers’ business growth and objectives.

In fact, brand equity – as a precursor and counterbalance to full-funnel demand generation – is a critical element of a solid business strategy. Research shows that 84% of deals are won by the first vendor a buyer contacts.

This first contact requires companies to have comprehensive brand-to-demand strategies in place, to ensure they are first on their buyers’ minds.

Below are three tactics to address this pain point effectively:

• Offer competitor analysis that clearly defines your unique value proposition (UVP) to engage BOFU leads. Develop personalized comparisons of products against your competitors based on the features that are of the most interest to each segment. Make this information engaging and accessible in brief reports and datasets that highlight your strengths at a glance.
• Provide assurance through nurture streams that engage and educate prospective clients. Offer problem-solving content such as case studies, whitepapers, webinars, executive briefs, and industry reports demonstrating how your solution addresses challenges and delivers ROI.
• Offer free tools and demos illustrating personalized problem-solving. Enable buyers to experience the benefits of your solution firsthand by offering free tools, demos, or trials that allow them to explore its capabilities. Tailor demos to address the specific pain points and objectives of each buyer or segment, and adjust your demo tactics to meet the needs of the increasingly younger, tech-savvy, and independent buyer.

2. Integration And AI Concerns

Amidst the challenge of managing bloated tech stacks, integration has become a key concern. 35% of executives reported their legacy software was rigid, expensive, and difficult to use.

Buyers actively seek tools to solve new business challenges while navigating integration requirements.

In addition, the B2B landscape has embraced the advantages of incorporating generative AI into day-to-day operations, as demonstrated by the fact that 73% of marketers were already leveraging generative AI, just six months after the release of OpenAI’s GPT4.

Below are three tactics to address these pain points effectively:

• Ensure solutions seamlessly integrate with existing systems. Proactively evaluate compatibility features of popular software and prioritize features that facilitate seamless integration. Establish a robust testing protocol to verify compatibility before deployment, ensuring minimal disruption and maximum value to clients.
• Integrate AI into existing solutions where possible. Identify areas within your solution where AI integration can truly enhance functionality and value for clients. Collaborate with developers to seamlessly embed AI capabilities into these solutions and ensure thorough testing to guarantee integration and optimal performance.
• Provide training to meet the demand for innovation and automation. Develop customized training and coaching programs tailored to your buyers’ specific needs and skill levels. Offer ongoing support and resources to facilitate continuous learning and adaptation to new technologies.

Due to the democratization of technology, the rise of low-code/no-code solutions, and the increasing tech-savvy Millennial and Gen Z buyers, sellers now require a more solution-oriented approach, equipped with technical knowledge.

By the time buyers are ready to meet with sellers (typically 70% or more into their purchasing journey), they often have detailed technical inquiries and may no longer require the high-level discussions that vendors are traditionally accustomed to.

Meeting buyers where they are has become a fundamental requirement.

3. ROI Concerns

Buyers are increasingly pressured to achieve ROI goals, making this a recurring concern among those seeking information on how solutions can assist them in reaching their performance objectives.

Below are two tactics to address this pain point effectively:

• Support claims with case studies and/or customer testimonials. Utilize tangible ROI data from existing clients, preferably from the same or similar industries to the buyers. Combine this with case studies to inform bottom-of-funnel nurturing activities such as content and webinars.
• Foster brand evangelism to build confidence. Provide exemplary post-sales service to support clients and regularly check in with them to ensure their satisfaction. Brand evangelism can be utilized to address common objections after a sale while establishing brand credibility within your industry.

Key Takeaways

Engage Buyers Where They Are In Their Buyer’s Journey

Lead nurturing and engagement tactics should always be tailored to address the pain points, challenges, platforms, and context of your buyers at their current stage in the sales funnel, ensuring relevance and effectiveness.

Innovate In Both Service And Technology To Maintain A Competitive Edge

In the B2B landscape, where technology is becoming increasingly democratized, it is crucial to consistently evaluate and refine your strategies, such as prioritizing low/no-code approaches, to stay updated with industry trends.

Explore Go-To-Market (GTM) Strategies

To fuel your GTM strategies with iterative approaches and data-driven insights, establish protocols for testing and optimization.

Continuously analyze performance metrics, refine tactics based on feedback, and foster collaboration across teams to ensure relevance and effectiveness.

Continuously Assess And Optimize Strategies To Streamline Nurturing

Given that each buyer’s challenges, needs, and readiness to purchase will frequently shift, ensure that you are closely monitoring their behavior triggers to optimize nurturing activities.

More resources: 

• How To Use SEO To Target Your Audience Throughout The Funnel
• How To Improve Lead Nurturing For B2B
• B2B Lead Generation: Create Content That Converts

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Google’s recent leak highlighted engagement as part of the ranking system, alluding to the importance of influencing audience behavior to drive SEO-specific metrics, like ranking or organic visibility.

That said, I’ve been using simple variations of these measures for a while to evaluate the impact of integrated PR and SEO campaigns. I don’t think the idea of measuring search behavior is new, but the Google leaks shed some light on its importance.

For sustainable growth in organic visibility and rankings, SEO strategies need to pivot to include measures that reflect how strongly owned assets, marketing assets, and messaging influence an audience’s search behavior.

Google’s broader objective to rank content that is genuinely helpful to specific audience segments is an important context for considering this shift.

So, SEO pros should evaluate website performance based on engagement-driven metrics like asset NPS, idea adoption rate, and time to activation, which will be important for directly and indirectly maximizing organic search visibility.

Why Measure Influence

The recent Google leaks highlight the growing importance of audience engagement measures in ranking pages.

This highlights the importance of integrating SEO, content creation, and PR, where influencing audience behavior becomes a key measure.

I see it like this:

• Google emphasizes engagement: The Google leaks suggest that Google places a lot of weight on user engagement measures such as click data, repeat visitors, site traffic, or related click data. Despite being incomplete and likely outdated information, it is one of many examples of Google using user engagement in some way.
• AI integration into the algorithm: With AI being integrated more heavily into Google’s ranking systems, AI could interpret and use this user engagement data to influence ranking.
• Brand search: Site traffic from brand search is an indicator of audience engagement and can influence organic visibility.

But to drive audience engagement, we have to think beyond simple SEO activities like link building, creating keyword-focused content, or technical SEO.

The future of search marketing is designing scenarios that influence an audience’s search behavior.

Ideal Search Behavior Scenario

The audience’s journey is more complex today than ever because they use many different sources to learn about their problems, the solutions, and the opportunities they create. However, this scenario simplifies how to think about your search strategy.

Scenario: You create an asset, you get PR coverage, and the audience searches the asset in Google (maybe they don’t find it based on keywords, then search your brand name). Then, they keep returning to your site for new assets or resources to solve their problems or create an opportunity (the original one as a resource or for your offering).

Simple Search Behavior Scenario Statement:

I need to create a content asset about [a problem or opportunity], to get coverage about [an asset of the asset] that the audience will prompt because [audience interest], which will drive my audience to search for [category or terms you own], and they will immediately or return to the site to take action because [solve a problem or create an opportunity].

You’ll have to modify this based on your specific website event goals, but the statement’s essence will guide you in the right direction.

This direction will allow you to focus on the much more significant but more difficult-to-impact measures below.

I have a foundation in product management and marketing, so I adopted these measures from product marketing concepts since they directly relate to audience actions.

Measure 1: Asset NPS

How likely is your audience to promote your content assets or ideas?

NPS score is used to gauge an audience’s loyalty and satisfaction using a survey question: “How likely are you to recommend our content to a friend or colleague?”

Respondents can provide a rating from 0-10.

• Promoters (9-10): Loyal and enthusiastic audience who keep talking about and referring your content or ideas to others.
• Passives (7-8): Satisfied with content but not an overly enthusiastic audience who will listen to a competitor’s point of view.
• Detractors (0-6): Unhappy audience that speaks negatively about your content.

High NPS indicates strong audience engagement, boosting engagement, and can indirectly influence organic visibility.

Typically, you’d have to survey an audience to gather the data. Use Google Forms, Survey Monkey, or any survey tool with a rating scale to collect questions.

Pro tip: Survey the audience on your site, the following you have on social media, or the email list you’re building as a result of the audience submitting contact info on the site or even through a newsletter.

Measure 2: Idea Adoption Rate

Does your audience adopt your ideas?

The adoption rate of an idea refers to the percentage of the audience segment that starts using the idea after you launch the asset.

This is a key measure to understand if your audience is accepting a particular idea, providing insights into engagement and market fit. This could directly influence engagement signals that can influence ranking.

Here’s How To Calculate

Metrics

• Audience segment size: How many people are in your audience segment?
• Audience usage size: Number of people who use the ideas in your content.

Formula: Adoption rate = (audience usage size/audience segment size) X 100%

You can collect this data in a lot of different ways, but shares alone are not a great metric since I don’t believe they reflect actual influence.

Find discussions or actions taken as a result of your ideas or content.

• Is your audience discussing your ideas on LinkedIn, Twitter (X), or relevant social?
• Are newsletters talking about your ideas or the essence of your ideas?
• Are your process steps being discussed?
• Do people share videos using your product or ideas?

Pro tip: I see some creators concerned about people “stealing” their original idea. I don’t think this is a bad thing. This is a signal of adoption due to the idea of solving a significant problem or opportunity.

Measure 3: Time To Activation

How long does it take your audience to take action on your site?

Time to activation measures how long it takes for your audience to take action by searching a topic or taking action on your site after engaging with your messaging.

These can include brand searches, search keywords you own, document downloads, contacting for a quote, or requesting a demo.

This measure can show how well your content is being adopted or if the messaging aligns with your audience’s journey. Shorter activation times suggest strong alignment with audience needs and higher content efficacy.

How To Measure

• Identify an activation point (e.g., events you want the audience to trigger) or goals on the site.
• Estimate how many people read or engaged with your content.
• Measure how many people took action around specific events on the site.

Pro tip: Some marketers will say you shouldn’t measure your program because attribution modeling doesn’t work or SEO takes time. However, time to activation highlights the importance of evaluating the actions on the site that the campaign should drive. Design campaigns for time to activation of less than 3 months for each event, 6 months for large goals, and 12 months for larger business impacts like creating a new market category.

As you activate your audience, brand search will likely have an impact, as your audience will likely search Google for more information on your topic.

Measure 4: Brand Search Volume

Does the audience search for your brand in search engines?

Brand measures refer to the number of times users search for a specific term you branded or own in search engines.

You can measure this in Google Search Console, searching for your brand name or a term you own.

Pro tip: Brand keywords are reported in Google Analytics under the general search engine (e.g. Google) with non-brand keywords. Look for short-term spikes or sustainable trends in Google Search Console, segmenting it in any way possible (e.g. page, query, date, brand modified term) to find the impact. Design your strategy with the idea of being able to measure brand search impact.

Impact On Your Strategy

Integrating SEO and PR strategies to influence audience behavior and engagement is important for maximizing organic visibility and search rankings.

Google’s recent leaks emphasize the importance of audience engagement, highlighting the need to integrate content creation, SEO, and PR to drive meaningful interactions.

Measures such as asset NPS, idea adoption rate, and time to activation provide valuable insights into audience loyalty, idea adoption, and action times.

These seem to be important for driving engagement and influencing search engine rankings but critical for audience engagement.

These engagement-driven measures will help ensure you don’t have to keep chasing Google’s evolving algorithms and that content genuinely resonates with your audience segment.

Start designing integrated PR and SEO strategies.

More resources:

• Experts Vs. Influencers: Digital PR Alternatives To Link Building
• 7 Steps To Building A Kickass Digital PR Campaign
• The Dark Side Of Link Building

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