Dan Sure On Using Buy Guides For SEO

In part one with Dan Shure we followed up on his previous advice around Google core updates and what you can do to improve your site after a core update. In part two, we talk about using buyer guides in your SEO strategy.

Buy Guides For SEO Content:

Dan Shure you can have a lot of success with creating buyer guides, which is a mid to low funnel piece of content. A buyer guide is somewhere in-between the category page or blog post and a product page. The buyer guide is very transactional in nature. The buyer guides sometimes outrank more than he would expect. He said to his early surprise, the buyer guides would rank for the bottom funnel keywords. You need to find the space where you fit your guide between the Wire Cutters of the world and your category page, Dan explained.

Despite Google trying to declutter the search results with less results from the same domain, if your pages serve different intents, and you have a category page, a blog post and a buyers guide, Google might show all three for the same keyword phrase in the same search results.

How To Construct Buyer Guides:

Buyer guide pages are constructed with content, link to product categories, your top products and also have product widgets on the page. They are a hybrid between product and category pages he said. This is not just for products but also for services.

The buyer guides tend to rank for buy related keywords and then the category pages rank for for sale keywords without them having to change anything. He said it is like Google now better understands the site and the architecture.

Also users react differently to these buyer guide pages when compared to category pages. Which is interesting as he said that sometimes you can have content on a category page, users aren’t going to read it and it is like Google won’t rank it for that content. But if you move that content to a blog post, Google will rank that.

When Do You Know You Need Buyer Guide Content:

Dan said you know you should try to build out buyer guide content when your customers are shopping, browsing, research for a particular products – then you need a buyer guides. He said any vertical where consumers do any research or any education for what you are selling, that deserves a buyer guide.

In terms of how many buyer guides, it depends on the company, their products and if they end up working for you. Build out these buyer guides slowly and take your time. Keep in mind, the content on those buyer guides is virtually all hand written.

Dan does not optimize these buyer guides for featured snippets, he thinks Google will ditch featured snippets at some point. But he did notice that some of these buyer guides can show up in Google Discover.

Learn more about Dan Shure at Evolving SEO.

You can subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here so you don’t miss the next vlog where I interviews. I do have a nice lineup of interviews scheduled with SEOs and SEMS, many of which you don’t want to miss – and I promise to continue to make these vlogs better over time. If you want to be interviewed, please fill out this form with your details.

Forum discussion at YouTube.