SEO Copywriting:
Building Web Content Funnels

By James Atkinson, LLB

Building web content funnels is a good way to pull your prospects down a sales pathway that leads to online sales. The image below illustrates the different types of web content you should be thinking about:

In earlier articles I discuss the advantages of surveying your market - see Market Segmentation. After you conduct a survey analysis you should discover: the type of prospects you need to target, the information they’re searching for. Thereafter you should allocate a spokesperson who will articulate your message.

Your next job is to create a content roadmap to plan the information you create for each segment. “Content funnels” take your market segments through the search continuum and educates them until they are ready to buy.

A content roadmap also helps you to plan in advance your content funnels for each segment across your channels (web site, blog, email etc.) and create content quickly and efficiently.

If you’re outsourcing your content writing, you’ll know exactly what topics you need to cover for each segment and where you want to publish that content.

I explain how to do this in the next series of articles, but as a preliminary introduction, here are a few suggestions:

• Create separate content categories on your web site and blog for each segment’s content,

• Organize each segment’s content in its search continuum order;
• Unwrap the survey results you’ve allocated for each segment and its appropriate search continuum;

• Create a content funnel for each segment;

• On each segment’s content funnel, write the major headings for what the segment wants to know, in the order (search continuum) they will be ready to learn it;

• Use these documents to make notes of new content ideas you have and keep your ideas organized by segment;
• When you are ready to write, review the information you have about each segment (e.g. stay-at-home Moms age 25-40 who want to earn a living from home). Ask yourself: How can I work my understanding of prospects’ needs and emotional benefits into my content? See: Consumer Psychology and in particular the article "Emotional Benefits".
• Review the language used by prospects in the segment to describe what they want. Incorporate the language into your content.

The whole content funnel process should be managed by an integrated CRM.

Decide where you’ll publish the content. For example, you might want to note whether a content idea is a quick thought for your blog, needs more in-depth treatment as a web site article, or is better suited to a “how to” YouTube video demonstration.

Decide your content delivery system. This is an important decision. Content determines high search engine rankings and visitor engagement - so you need a CMS to easily manage articles, blogs, videos and other online content!

You will also need an eMail Marketer - see eMail Marketing.

Let's move on to how you can get content ideas.

SEO Copywriting > Persuasive Content Writing > Trust and Web Copywriting > Building Relationships with Web Content > The Web Content Spokesperson > Building Web Content Funnels >