This topic has been a long time coming, and I’ve been meaning to address it for quite a while now. I may have to go off on a bit of a rant for a minute, so bear with me.

For the past fifteen years internet marketers have been obsessed with a “silver bullet” mentality. Most are looking for some slick trick to work the system and exploit weaknesses in search engine algorithms. These marketers are now grasping at straws to reverse the impact they experienced from major search engine algorithm updates.

Many SEOs are now turning to social media to beat the system, but these strategies won’t hold up either. Penalties for manipulating social signals are on the horizon. So what’s an internet marketer to do? They need to get back to marketing fundamentals. That’s what all these updates are doing – forcing SEOs to be real marketers if they want to win.

A “Real Marketing” Strategy

Looking forward to a more future-proof SEO strategy, it will become more important for marketers to make use of fundamental marketing practices. What would you do if there weren’t any search engines but you still wanted to get people to your website without advertising?

There’s a lot that goes into making a small purchase decision.

As SEOs, we’re way too busy trying to captivate our potential customers when they are about to make a purchase decision. We’re getting involved in the process way too late.

People aren’t going to buy from you right away. They don’t even know that they need your solution. You need to build awareness and gently guide your customers toward a sale with less promotional content. I call this process content funneling.

Content Funneling

The best SEO strategy in 2014 is to create content that will funnel your potential customers closer to a sale. You need to lead them from brand awareness toward a final purchase decision with you. In order to do that, you may need to be willing to give up some of your secret sauce.

Step 1: Inform

All about content marketing with better information.

Step 2: Advise

Advise your audience that they have a problem

Step 3: Instruct

Teach them how to solve their own problem.

Step 4: Solve

Present and compare various solutions to their problem.

Step 5: Sell

Captivate people who are comparing your solution to others.