Are You Ignoring 95% of Your Customers?

The title of this blog post is definitely not meant to be clickbait. But the question will soon become a serious matter of concern for all marketers and is already impacting brand awareness and content marketing strategy. 

According to Ahrefs, 94.7% of all Google queries have a search volume of 10 or less per month. This data is based on the search volume distribution of 4 billion keywords.

This is a pretty incredible stat, and these numbers will definitely change how we think about content marketing. Do you have the resources, time, and budget to produce online content that will get only 10 queries per month? Probably not. But does this mean you can afford not to be in front of 95% of customers? Of course not.

Let’s take a closer look at the Ahrefs keyword data. 5.14% have a search volume between 11 – 1,000 queries, 0.10% between 1,001 – 100,000 and 0.0008% is >100,001. These are queries, not clicks. To calculate a possible number of clicks, if your SEO is excellent and you rank in the top 3 results, apply a very optimistic CTR of 30% for position 1, 20% for position 2, and 12% for position 3 to calculate the number of clicks. 

So how do you make sure your brand gets discovered?

Here are some recommendations on where to get started.

Accept the fact that you need massive amounts of content

If you rolled your eyes and thought there is not a single chance you can create that much content, please read on. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. There is a way to produce high-quality, relevant content at scale without spending a fortune.

But first, you need to come to terms with the fact that there needs to be A LOT of content. Customers are interacting with more screens than ever before, and it's not enough to just publish a few pieces here and there – you need to be consistently delivering high-quality content and be present at multiple touchpoints if you want to attract attention and build an audience. 

The alternative is relying on paid advertising to get your brand in front of people. That's an option, but it is an increasingly costly proposition. Paid traffic is also less effective than it used to be, as people are becoming more adept at ignoring ads. 

Realize that the traditional approach to creating content no longer works

The traditional way of producing content is incredibly slow and very costly. It takes a lot of time to research, write, edit, and publish new content. It is therefore expensive, and too often it doesn't produce the results you need. In today's fast-paced world, you simply can't afford to wait weeks or even months for new content.

Data and AI have disrupted the traditional content creation process, and there are now tools that can help you produce high-quality, relevant texts at a fraction of the cost and time of what they used to be.

Adjust the results expectations

With 95% of queries having a search volume of 10 or less per month, and with an average social media engagement rate well below 1% (HootSuite's Digital 2022 Global Overview report), it's important to have realistic expectations when it comes to marketing your brand online. While all content needs to be produced in order to be discovered, most of it will have low traffic and low engagement numbers.

The key is to produce a lot of content and to be patient. Over time, you will see results.  But remember there will be A LOT of content with just a few impressions and clicks. That is the new normal, even though it takes time to get used to this idea.

Be relevant

If your customer is asking a question about a new car, she won’t be interested in learning about a new ice-cream flavor at this very second. While matching customer intent with content sounds obvious, another stat that was published by Ahrefs based on over a billion keywords is that 90.6% of websites get no traffic from Google. None. Yes, there are many reasons for that, but content relevance is one of them.

Content that is matched to customer intent is more likely to be discovered. There's a lot of noise out there, so being relevant helps.

Leverage data and AI to produce content at scale, faster, and at a fraction of the traditional content creation cost

As the internet continues to grow and evolve, so does the way that businesses operate. Data provides insights that can help you understand what your audience really wants and needs. And AI can help you generate relevant content quickly and efficiently. Combined, they can help you keep up with the demands of the digital age.

If you are concerned about the quality of the AI-generated content, it can in fact vary. But it is the same with a copy produced by us, humans – some content might be excellent, while some may need a couple of rounds of revisions. If you want to create high-quality content with the help of AI, the success lies in the effort applied to create quality input data. 

Distribute your content

Even the best articles and posts will not be discovered if they sit only in one channel. Social media, email marketing, blogs, and news websites are all great ways to promote your content. Collect as many backlinks as possible. They still matter. You can also use paid advertising to get in front of more people and to give your content a boost. Experiment with different channels and see what works best for you.

Be patient

It takes time to build an audience. Be patient and keep at it. Over time, you will see results.

Don't ignore the majority of queries just because they have low search volumes, and keep the "95% have 10 queries per month search volume" fact in your mind. 

Scaling content can be a daunting task, but it's one that's essential to any business that wants to succeed online. At Intentful, we can help you solve your content marketing pains and get your business to the next level. Contact Intentful today to learn more about how our services and AI-powered solutions can help grow your business.