How to Create an SEO Funnel for your Business

If you want your business to run on autopilot and allow you more time freedom, then you need an SEO funnel. While working fewer hours and making more money probably sounds appealing, you may wonder if it’s a realistic opportunity for your business. My friend, it is. You can build an SEO funnel and have your business work without you being tied to it every moment of the day. 

What is an SEO funnel?

An SEO funnel is a content marketing funnel powered by search engine optimization. If you’re creating content, whether it be for a blog, podcast, YouTube, or something else, you likely have what you need to create an SEO funnel for your business. 

Your SEO funnel uses the content you create to connect your business with new customers through search.

How does an SEO funnel work?

When someone types a keyword in a search engine (this could be Google, Pinterest, a podcast player app, etc.), the search engine shows them content related to that keyword search to try to help answer their questions or provide the information they need. 

When your content is SEO-friendly, search engines are more likely to show your information as one of the options in the search results.

Listen to the podcast here.

Why do you want to create an SEO funnel?

If you’re creating content for your business, why wouldn’t you want it found by more people? Creating great content takes time, and optimizing it helps ensure more people see your work. It’s that simple. 

Without using SEO on your content, you won’t be seen by as many people as you could be with search engine optimization in place.

How do you create an SEO funnel for your business?

You want to start by thinking about your ideal customer. Who are they? What questions do they have? How can you help them?

Then, you want to create content that serves a purpose. Your content needs to be designed to answer questions, engage your potential visitors, provide value, help them overcome an objection, etc. 

To create an SEO funnel, you want to add a step between thinking about your ideal customer and creating great content. That first step is to consider the keywords your ideal customer might use when searching for information.

SEO keywords are the connection point between your ideal customer and your content because they’re what the search engines use to understand and sort content. They match keywords from customer searches to information in their database. If you have the keywords someone is searching for on your website, in your blog post, in your podcast, in your pin description, etc., you’re more likely to be one of the options that the search engine shows to the person looking for information. 

By thinking about the keywords you want to use before you start writing content, you can make sure that what you’re writing will help your ideal customer.

How do you decide which keywords to use in an SEO funnel?

Honestly, the keywords you use will likely differ based on where you’re using them. Each of the search engines has different keyword rules. In some places, like YouTube, podcasting, and Pinterest, you can reuse the same core group of keywords on a regular basis. That won’t work on Google because they limit how often they’ll show a website for a specific keyword search.

For Google, you must choose different keywords for each website page or blog post. But for your podcast, Pinterest, YouTube, etc., you may very easily be able to use the same list of 10-20 keywords for almost every piece of content you create. 

How do you do SEO on the content in your funnel?

How you do SEO will depend on the type of content you create. There are different rules and best practices for each area. 

To do SEO on your website, start here.

To do SEO on your blog posts, start here.

To do SEO on your podcast episodes, start here.

To do SEO on Pinterest, start here.

I don’t have a guide to YouTube SEO, but it will be similar to Google and Blog SEO. 

How much content do you need to create an SEO funnel?

There’s no rule as to how much content you need to create. However, you want to have enough that you’re viewed as a resource by the search engines. If you only have 1-2 blog posts or 4 podcast episodes, you’re probably not going to get much traffic because you can’t provide a lot of value yet to a reader.

I’d work towards having at least 25 blog posts or podcast episodes that are helpful to your ideal customer and optimized for search engines so you can start getting steady traffic to your website or podcast episode downloads.

Your Pinterest SEO will help drive more traffic to your blog, social, podcast, etc. You don’t need to create more content for Pinterest, just create optimized Pins for the content you’re already creating.

I recommend creating one new piece of content each week if you can manage that. You don’t need to blog daily or record new podcast episodes every day. That’s, honestly, a recipe for burnout and stress. It’s better to create less content that’s higher quality and optimized for the search engines than to simply focus on creating large amounts of content.

How can having an SEO funnel in place help your business grow?

An SEO funnel is simply a sales funnel powered by organic traffic. It’s that simple. It’s going to be able to help you the exact same way a regular sales funnel can, and that’s to drive traffic, leads, and revenue for your business. But the main difference between a sales funnel that’s powered by search engine optimization and one that’s powered by ads is that an SEO funnel is more profitable because you’re earning your traffic rather than paying for it, and that means the money you earn stays with you. 

Using your SEO content funnel to grow your email list

As entrepreneurs, we know that growing an email list is key to growing our businesses. The traffic you drive to your website or blog via search engine optimization is interested in your topics, your business, and your content, and as such, you could likely be a resource for them. The final step is to help convert that traffic when they get to your website. You’ll want an opt-in that’s appealing to them, so they’re more likely to give you their email address in exchange for your guide, PDF, free training, etc. 

Each piece of content that you create should have an opt-in on the page so you can grow your email list. If you're not sure how to create an opt-in, start here for some ideas. 

Why having an SEO funnel is important to your success

We want to always grow our email list and drive people to resources that we own. We don’t want to spend time building our businesses on borrowed land (e.g., social media) because we’re at the mercy of a company that’s trying to keep people on their website or app longer so they can sell more ads to advertisers.

When you work with the search engines and optimize your content, they’re going to help connect you with people who are searching for information that you have. Rather than trying to keep them on their website or app, they’re focused on sending them directly to your website or blog.

Be sure when you share your podcast episode information, you send people to a show notes blog post-style page on your website where they can listen to your podcast episode rather than just to players like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, so you get the traffic. Always send traffic to a resource you own, so you have a better chance of collecting an email address and building a relationship with that new visitor. You want them to get used to coming to your website or blog, listening to your podcast, etc. The relationship you build will help your business grow. 

If you’re ready to create an SEO funnel for your business, join me in Simple SEO Content, and I’ll walk you through the process. Learn how to get your content found by the right people on Google every single day. If you have a podcast, get Simple Podcast SEO, too, so you can grow your show downloads and your website traffic. Let’s build an SEO funnel together to fuel your business.