With so many CPG brands aiming to stand out online, it’s more important than ever to understand how search engines work and have an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy in place. You can’t just create content, post it to your website, and expect consumers to find it online. You need to implement a solid SEO strategy within your digital marketing plan to help you rise to the top. Staying on top of the latest SEO trends will enable you to meet specific requirements that search engines use to rank websites. Here are the top trends that can help you boost your CPG’s visibility on search engine result pages.

Prioritize VSO Within Your SEO Strategy

“Hey Google, where can I buy vegan nail polish?” With about 30% of U.S. consumers using voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google, and with only an 8% error rate in speech recognition, users are becoming more and more trusting of this technological advancement. Voice-search optimization (VSO) is an SEO strategy that you cannot miss. So, how do you enhance your SEO strategy to incorporate VSO?

VSO relies on conversational keywords, usually long-tail keywords and in the form of a question, for better ranking. For example, instead of typing in “keto hot sauce” on a search engine, a prospective consumer might voice search “what are the best keto hot sauces?” So, you need to brainstorm what kind of questions people might ask related to your target keywords. There are various online tools that can help you do this. Answer the Public has become a popular SEO tool, as it allows you to type in a root keyword, and in turn, it will give you a map and a list of commonly asked questions related to that keyword.

Use these questions to build and include a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section on your product pages. Try to group common questions on the same page and write as naturally as possible. These will help you rank better in voice searches as they include questions, keywords and the FAQ-style format, which makes it easy for search engines to pull content from your website and display it as a rich snippet.

Optimize Long-Tail Keywords on Your Website

Not only do the long-tail keywords need to be optimized for VSO, but for traditional SEO as well. Long-tail keywords are the foundation for any effective CPG SEO strategy. Long-tail keywords are usually four to six words long and are more specific than the average keyword. They account for 70% of all web searches, so optimizing every piece of content on your CPG brand’s website is essential to drive organic traffic from your target audiences.

Keyword-rich long-tail keyword headlines will improve your rankings and increase your website’s engagement. Your prospective customer is looking for products and services that will solve their problems and address the very keywords that they typed into the search engine’s search box. While longer variations of keywords may have lower search values than head keywords, their conversion rates are usually very high. Using long-tail keywords laser focus on audiences giving buying signals in their search engine query.

Include Alt Text on All Images

Search engines are able to read text on your website, but not on your images. In order to understand the imagery on your website, search engines use alternative text. Alt-text is a description that can be inserted as an attribute in HTML format. Include appropriate alt text for every image on your website and describe what’s pictured accurately. This will improve your search rankings by highlighting important keywords and making your website easier for search engine bots to crawl.

What does a great alt text look like for your CPG brand? Here is an example:

• Okay – alt text: <img src= “socks.jpg” alt= ”socks”>
• Better – alt text: <img src= “socks.jpg” alt= ”patterned socks”>
• Great – alt text: <img src= “socks.jpg” alt= “light blue socks with banana pattern”>

Provide Unique Meta Tags

Title tags are an essential piece to optimizing your search engine marketing plan. They complement what your prospective customers are typing in during their web searches, giving them quality results on their search queries. Using the right title tag can improve your click-through-rate (CTR) from 20-100%, improving your overall conversion rate. Users don’t type into direct, succinct words in search engines though, so it’s important to research the words they’re using for consumer product goods information and tweak your title tags to reflect that.

Meta descriptions are another important piece of meta tags that determines your ranking factor and helps consumers find your site more easily. This is a chance to prove that your content is relevant to your audience. If your meta descriptions are engaging and relevant, prospective customers will be encouraged to click on your website during their search. Including a call-to-action (CTA) in your meta description is a great way to lure users to click your link and hopefully leads to a conversion. 

Just when you think you’ve fully optimized your website, search engines update their algorithms and the process starts all over. But don’t be discouraged, by making these small changes on your CPG brand’s current website you will see better ranking, new leads, and increased conversions. Invest in SEO as a long-term strategy for lead generation and stay on top of the latest SEO trends to avoid getting left behind.