What is one way online help desks can help with SEO (search engine optimization)?
To help companies support their SEO efforts through help desks and support centers, we asked marketing leaders this question for their best insights. From optimized key phrases to user-generated content ideas, there are several ways that online help desks can enhance your SEO.
Here are 10 ways help desks can improve your search engine optimization strategy:
- Analyze Which Topics Your Target Market is Reading
- Compile a Treasure Trove of Content
- Expand Your Online Footprint
- Get to the Point
- Find User-Generated Topics
- Build Personalized and Localized Campaigns
- Target Long-Tail Keywords
- Allow Search Engines to Index Your Support Pages
- Optimize Key Phrases
- Create Content Around Pain Points
Analyze Which Topics Your Target Market is Reading
Your help desk is an SEO gold mine. From your ticket log and support desk statistics, you can extract consumer insights. You may use analytics data to discover which topics individuals spend the most time reading once your knowledge base is neatly categorized. To help you organize your data in this manner, use content groupings and custom reports in Google Analytics. This data will help you determine what further documentation your customer support or marketing teams should generate or improve. You may already have textual documentation in many cases, but you’ll want to spend extra time polishing it using video, in-app microcopy, or other content types.
Rod Cullum, Cullum Homes
Compile a Treasure Trove of Content
Need more ideas for blog content? Data from your help desk could be the perfect place to look. Analyze FAQs and commonly searched phrases to uncover patterns in customer searches. Then, build content around these topics to fully address these queries. Providing users with value-adding content is a vital part of your SEO strategy. So use the help desk to ignite new ideas and spur blog growth.
Claire Routh, Markitors
Expand Your Online Footprint
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critical for any online business’s success. Your search result ranking may tumble if you don’t have a decent SEO plan for your business website pages. You may eventually miss having a well-established online profile.
Aside from a company’s website, the online help desk and knowledge base articles are two more information repositories that can help expand a company’s online footprint. The help center and articles must be optimized in order to appear high on search engine result pages (SERPs) and to be easily found on the internet.
Gwen North, Lake Rabun Hotel
Get to the Point
Sometimes when people look something up on a search engine, they’re looking for a long, in-depth guide. Other times, such as with dictionary definitions or quick tips, they’re looking for a bitesize answer, so they can understand and get on with things straight away.
Having an online helpdesk with snappy answers definitely fits into the latter category. With it you can address searches with short, tailored answer pages. Having a range of resource types on your website helps address different search terms and user intentions — helping you rank well across search terms within your particular industry or niche by meeting users where they’re at.
Camille Brouard, Myhrtoolkit
Find User-Generated Topics
An online help desk contains a plethora of user-generated content that brands can use for their keyword research and content ideation. Companies with online help desks can run keyword research on tickets submitted by their customers. That can help identify the most frequently occurring words or phrases. A text analyzer will help pinpoint the most common issues that customers face.
When companies consolidate a list of frequently occurring keywords, they can use the list to improve their search engine optimization practices to incorporate these words. Since these are user-generated, the chances are high that they will produce favorable results.
Michelle Ebbin, JettProof
Build Personalized and Localized Campaigns
Indexed data from your online help desk can help you understand how location correlates to your customers’ search behavior. You can then use this information to create location-specific SEO campaigns as well as training materials. This data will enable you to proactively meet the needs of your customers and prospects.
Patrick Crane, Love Sew
Target Long-Tail Keywords
Your online help desk can give you a good idea of what your customers are looking for in terms of product support. It can show you the most common phrases they use when submitting a ticket or navigating your help documentation.
With this knowledge, you can identify valuable long-tail keywords that you can build content around. It can also highlight gaps in your existing content and support pages, allowing you to provide more comprehensive information that answers customers’ problems.
Jake Smith, Absolute Reg
Allow Search Engines to Index Your Support Pages
It’s possible to simultaneously bolster your customer service and SEO at the same time. To do so, create a dedicated support page — or ‘help desk’ — on your website for people to use when they need guidance. To ensure that this support page is search engine optimized, you should use a title with relevant keywords, as well as a meta description to summarize the content on the page.
Treat the meta description as if it were a normal sentence; it should match the content on the page, so users know whether the subject matter matches their search intent. Finally, if you have any images on the page, make sure to include alt text.
This can have a massive impact on your SERP positioning as alt text provides context as to what an image is displaying if it fails to load. This helps you rank higher by allowing search engine crawlers to correctly index an image and understand the full scope of what your online help desk provides.
George Tsagas, eMathZone
Optimize Key Phrases
Researching the keywords your customer base is using to find products or services like yours is so important so you can optimize your website by including key phrases on your site! Using free tools like Google Trends will give you insight into commonly used search queries and will also show you where the searches are coming from if you want to do geographically targeted advertising campaigns!
Jonathan Finegold, MedCline
Create Content Around Pain Points
Online help desk software helps businesses solve their customers’ problems and complaints. SEOs can really benefit from learning and understanding these insights from customers. This allows the business to create and optimize content around the actual pain points and issues that customers are struggling with and searching for. As a result, their landing pages and blog posts can provide a great user experience.
Jeremy Medina, TechnologyAdvice
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