The end goal of using demand generation tactics like search engine optimization (SEO) is to increase organic web traffic. But what do you do if no one is searching for content like yours at all? Here’s what you need to know before creating your own search category.
If you’re offering a unique type of product, potential customers will have a hard time finding your content organically. If they don’t know about your new product, they won’t know how to look for it yet. As the famous Henry Ford (probably) once said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
This is the position many SaaS marketers find themselves in. How do you position a solution nobody has heard of yet? The answer is simple: by publishing content in related categories they’re already searching for.
When you consider category creation, you have to approach it from the perspective of the person behind the keyboard. It’s nice to imagine there’s a thriving audience of people all searching the terms that will inevitably lead them to your content. All you have to do to get them to click is create awesome content, right? Unfortunately, we all know it’s not that easy.
Factors like the quality of your content and its Google search ranking don’t matter if no one is looking for content in your category in the first place. Think about what your ideal customer is searching for besides your product. What problems do they have? What solutions do they gravitate toward that yours improves upon? Find established pain points and target those categories. If no one is looking for your content, you should meet them where they are looking and then guide them from there.
In cases where no category exists yet, you have to explore tangential categories. Once you’ve identified the categories where your audience is clicking, your goal becomes redirection. Use your content to provide them with the information they were searching for, but also direct them towards your new solution they didn’t even know existed. This way, you can draw on existing interest in your broader market space and convert it into an interest in your brand, specifically.
If we’re talking about software, you might have a bit of an easier time. There’s usually already an established category when it comes to software research. People already know what they’re looking for and they’re searching specifically for content that will give them that information, whether a particular category or a particular type of software.
Even if people aren’t typing the exact words into the search bar that will take them to your content, that doesn’t mean you can’t reach them. People are already searching for related information about the problem your product solves — you just need to capture that attention wherever it currently lives and redirects it toward your solution.
