When trying to grow a business online, organic search traffic can seem like one of the slowest games of all time – it can feel like it takes forever for search engines to bring another person to your website.
And most businesses are waiting on Google to hopefully bring another five people today or another 10 people tomorrow.
The problem arises when you have to wait for people to ask a question in the search engine and hope your content is good enough to rank in the top 10 search results on Google for that particular question.
It’s also pretty common that most businesses do not have the time to wait or the budget to grow their website to millions of visitors quickly.
But what if there were a way to fix that problem?
What if there were a better and faster way to engage your organic search traffic and your social media content all at the same time?
Luckily, there is a simple six-step process to engage your organic search traffic on social media and drastically expand your organic search reach by using Facebook lookalike audiences.
- Step 1: Perform keyword research.
- Step 2: Create a piece of content (for this example it will be a blog).
- Step 3: Get some organic traffic to that piece of content.
- Step 4: Set-up your social media pixel and pixel the people who read the article of content.
- Step 5: Create a Facebook lookalike audience.
- Step 6: Serve social media ads to that audience.
Now, to break this down even more.
Step 1: Perform Keyword Research
When starting with keyword research, you probably have a few keywords that you would like to rank for – apparent things like your products, services, or other topics your website addresses.
These seed topics are a great place to start for your keyword research, but that doesn’t mean you should stop there.
Why?
What you want to rank for, and what your audience is typing into the search engines, are often two completely different things.
That is one of the most pivotal reasons to perform keyword research in the first place.
If people aren’t searching for it, then why waste time creating it in the first place?
The smartest way to avoid this is to find the exact words and phrases that your ideal customers are currently searching for on Google and other major search engines.
This may sound not easy, but there are a handful of excellent keyword research tools that can help.
For example, we used Ahrefs to research the phrase, ‘“how to get 10k followers on instagram.”
You can see how many people are searching for this key phrase and any other relatable parent topics that people are also searching for.
When creating content for the search engines, it’s essential to create content that answers one question at a time.
For example, you could take these short-term and long-term keywords and create a blog post on each one of them only when it makes sense for your business.
You see, people are searching for your question, but they are also searching for “how to get swipe up on instagram without 10k followers” and “how to get 10k followers on instagram in one day.”
If it doesn’t make sense to write a topic on each of those questions and the keywords are too relatable, then maybe it makes more sense to use this set of keywords as an H1 or H2 heading instead, which also plays a significant factor in search engine rankings.
Step 2: Create a Piece of Content
Now that you understand the importance of finding the right keywords to use in your content marketing strategy, it is time to create a blog post.
When writing a blog, it is essential to remember that the goal is to get new readers to your blog consistently, eventually leading to a sale.
It’s also to get readers and engagement on the blog, so signals are sent to social media and the search engines to help you get that first-page ranking on Google.
This is where keyword research comes into play.
When performing keyword research correctly, it takes no time to get top rankings in Google because you know what people are searching for and how frequently they are searching for it.
Once your blog post is published to your website, it is time to wait for some people to read and engage with it.
Step 3: Get Organic Traffic
The only thing you have to do in this step is to wait for some organic traffic, the goal is around 1,000 people.
Over time when the piece of content you created starts to get search results, you can then set up a pixel (this is the next step) and begin running social media ads to hack the process.
However, let me start by saying this may not be as simple as it sounds – this is the step where most businesses get stuck and don’t know how to grow reasonably.
Most companies understand how a simple marketing funnel works, but what they don’t understand is how to continuously get newly qualified people throughout every piece of the marketing funnel.
Even so, most businesses don’t understand how to successfully intertwine multiple platforms and use their social media to grow their organic search traffic or vice versa.
People have created all of these great pieces of content, but they don’t understand how to use that to take them to the next level.
And when you are using multiple platforms, that’s where this marketing strategy comes into play.
You have to understand how to track every person who touches your content, from the first touch to the last.
Studies have shown that it usually takes a person seven interactions with a business before making a purchase.
To know how many times a person interacts with your content, it is critical to have a pixel placed on your website for accurate data tracking, leading to the next step.
Step 4: Set Up Social Media Pixel
Once you have published your blog post and have a small amount of traffic engaging with your content, it is time to set up your social media pixel on your website.
If you are unfamiliar with a pixel, here is the definition.
A pixel is a few lines of code that you copy into the header section of your website.
It works by placing and triggering cookies to track users as they interact with your website and your Facebook ads.
The pixel serves two primary purposes:
- To remarket to someone who has visited one of your pages.
- To know which pages they have visited and to track and see if someone has completed the desired action, whatever that may be.
What the pixel does, in essence, is allow Facebook to track their audience on our platform, we are essentially giving Facebook access to our tracking.
If you are unsure how to create a Facebook pixel and add the Facebook Pixel to your website, follow this two-part process:
Part 1: Create a Facebook Pixel
- Go to Events Manager.
- Click Connect Data Sources and select Web.
- Select Facebook Pixel and click Connect.
- Add your Pixel Name.
- Enter your website URL to check for easy setup options.
- Click Continue.
Part 2: Add the Facebook Pixel to Your Website
Once you’ve created your pixel, you’re ready to put the Facebook pixel code on your website.
There are a few different options on how you can set this part up:
- You can manually add pixel code to a website.
- Use a partner integration.
- Use email instructions.
Once the tracking is in place and you fully understand your target audience’s patterns, you can begin to implement the R3MAT strategy, showing the right message to the right person at the right time with the right expectations.
Once you have your social media pixel set up, it’s time to move into the next step.
Step 5: Create a Lookalike Audience
Did you know that Facebook can predict if you are pregnant before you even know you’re pregnant?
And did you know that studies are proving Facebook can predict if people are cheating on their partner before they ever realize it?
That seems pretty scary, right?
But, here is where that becomes super powerful.
Facebook has an option where you can create a lookalike audience based on its tracking abilities to reach new people who are most likely to be interested in your business because they’re similar to your best existing customers.
You can create a group of people who have similar likes, interests, and demographics to people who are already interacting with your website.
Here is how to create a Facebook Lookalike Audience:
- Go to your Audiences.
- Click the Create Audience dropdown and choose Lookalike Audience.
- Choose your source notes:
- A source can be a customer audience not created with your pixel data, mobile app data or fans of your page.
- Consider using 1,000 to 50,000 of your best customers based on lifetime value, transaction value, total order size, or engagement.
- Choose the country/countries where you’d like to find a similar set of people.
- Choose your desired audience size with the slider.
- Click Create Audience.
Creating this audience gives any business the ability to create a small subset of people you can talk to any way you choose.
You can now show this audience relevant ads, move them through the sales funnel, build your relationship with them, build your reach and frequency.
All of this is possible because Facebook is watching so many little data points all of the time.
Facebook is continuously collecting information about the things you buy and the websites you visit.
Plus thousands of other bits of personal information gathered from public records and your social media activity.
Step 6: Serve Audience the Social Media Ads
The final step is to show relevant ads to your new lookalike audience that you just created.
To keep this process going, make sure you are consistently showing your lookalike audience(s) new relevant content that meets them at each point in the buyers’ journey.
When you complete this six-step process, you are officially taking your organic search and lighting it on fire.
More Resources:
Image Credits
All screenshots taken by author, August 2020
