Opinion: Leveraging SEO’s importance while creating digital products

Shiva Bhavani, Wing Communications sheds light on how SEO helps enhance product discoverability, better the user experience, as well as make it a part of the content ecosystem, when embedded in the core strategy of digital products.

Digital marketing has given a means to the industries to create effective strategies and reach their potential customers. Pertaining to this, in the last decade, it has become of paramount importance to invest in the digital market to increase its share and market value. While a significant amount is contributed to the technological advancements and creation of digital products, the industry still has a lot to conquer. Contributing to the creation of digital products, one term that comes up is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

But what exactly does SEO bring to the table in terms of creating a digital product?

The answer may be “to improve the position of a website or keyword within the search engine”, correct, however, as an SEO professional, you seek opportunities that will increase visibility and authority of the product (in search engines), generate value, and attract new business for the company, as well as answer the user's doubts as completely and objectively as possible.

SEO, through the use of technology, content, and user experience best practices, analyzes the consumer's search intentions, whether in the moment of discovery, consideration, or decision making, to gain authority and expand its position in organic searches. The development of a digital product starts similar to all areas of concern, identifying the problem. Through the process of discovery, we can analyze quantitative and qualitative data prior to looking for a possible solution, generating a greater basis for guiding the team.

For SEO this research is based on three main pillars:

• Technology: A website may have the fastest loading speed with the most incredible content, but if they are not configured correctly, it will not appear in organic results due to the difficulty in interpreting the language and rendering the information.

• Content: The question to ask and problem to cater to is whether the right keywords are being implemented or not? Additionally, they are responsible for looking at the content development in a more humane and less robotic way, guiding the algorithms to the copywriters and marketing team, and leveraging the strength that the domain can gain within the search results since the position of a keyword is a result of the strategy used, not the purpose.

• User experience: Continuous discovery from the SEO perspective ensures that the SEO team works with the evolution of the implemented actions, and identifies opportunities to increase the exposure of the digital product within the searches, via either market analysis or metrics that confirm the hypotheses.

Also Read: Opinion: Progressive Web Applications – The future of web building and browsing

Incorporating SEO into the digital products

With inbound marketing, thousands of companies can increase their visibility at all stages of the consumer journey, whether through social media or organic search, in addition to working to build a close relationship with each customer from the moment they become loyal customers. The use of SEO experts in conjunction with a dissemination plan or to increase its reach in unrepresentative territories facilitates the communication of all brand authority and expertise to potential consumers, as doubts and needs will be reflected in in-depth and comprehensive content on the topic. In this case, it is important for the efforts of these professionals to be foreseen during product creation planning, as we must understand the formats of content that are suitable for use, along with questions and opportunities for agendas that can be deepened, as well as copywriting techniques and tone of voice to be used along with loyalty.

It is of paramount importance that your product is accessible to the users, and SEO makes this task easier. SEO can do wonders in the process of digital product development, from the identification of customer demands to the provision of content and media. It helps authenticate the market relevance of your digital product ideas. In addition, SEO allows you to optimize your digital products for search engines right from the beginning.

The marketers need to grasp that Instead of considering SEO an afterthought or something that can be glued onto an existing product, “incorporating SEO into the product” means developing a product with SEO in mind.

Implementing what user intent it could satisfy, thinking of the content, and defining a scalable architecture. Products with SEO engraved in their DNA aspire to produce indexable, useful content at scale.

The marketing industry needs to recognize that SEO professionals contribute to the creation of new digital products and the optimization of existing ones. Through the integration of technology, content, and media, the area can contribute with its knowledge and aid in the success of the strategy, increasing the scope of the profit-sharing, because the SEO professional uses their expertise to enrich the work of others on the team.

This article is authored by Shiva Bhavani, CEO & Founder - Wing Communications