What Are Micro-Moments To Google (And How Should B2Bs Leverage Them?)
Are your prospective clients or customers the types of people who need to go somewhere, or know and do something before they ultimately choose to buy your product or service to support their growth efforts?
If yes, then you and your marketing team need to have a great handle on the micro moments of the customer journey.
Get your micro moments right, and your website can be an effective, efficient growth machine for your business.
Get your micro moments wrong, and your website is likely to be nothing more than a digital brochure. You won’t have the opportunity to correctly share your story, build trust, and convert leads into customers.
Read below to learn more about micro moments and check out 4 great page samples from some of the largest and fastest growing software makers.
What are micro-moments?
Google describes them as “intent-rich moments when people turn to their phones for answers or solutions.” There are four types of micro-moments: I-want-to-know moments, I-want-to-go moments, I-want-to do moments, and I want to buy moments. Here’s a more detailed explanation from Google:
“People’s needs change by the moment. And in today’s hyperconnected world, they expect brands to anticipate and meet those needs wherever they are.”
That’s why Google first introduced the concept of micro-moments back in 2016. Micro moments are those crucial, intent-rich moments when people turn to their phones for answers or solutions.
There are four types of micro-moments:
- I-want-to-know moments
- I-want-to-go moments
- I-want-to-do moments
- I want-to-buy moments
The first two micro moments – “I want to know” and “I want to go” – occur before a purchase is made. They’re all about information gathering and research.
The second two micro moments – “I want to do” and “I want to buy” happen after someone is interested in a product or service. In these moments, people are looking to take action and buy.
Micro-moments are important for businesses because they present opportunities to reach potential customers at key points in their buying journey. If you can provide the right content or message at the right time, you can influence a customer’s decision to buy from you.
Now that you know what micro moments are, get access to 200+ industry terms and definitions by checking out our online marketing glossary.
What are some examples of micro-moments?
Optimizing your website and ads for micro-moments is essential if you want to reach prospective customers during their research phase. When someone is searching for information on Google, they’re likely doing so in one of the following micro moments:
I-want-to-know moment: The person is looking for general information about a topic or product.
- Example: Someone searches for “what is software as a service?”
I-want-to-go moment: The person is looking for a specific business or product.
- Example: Someone searches for “software companies near me.”
I-want-to-do moment: The person is looking to take action on a topic or product.
- Example: Someone searches for “how to become a software engineer.”
I-want-to-buy moment: The person is ready to buy a product or service.
- Example: Someone searches for “shipping software for small business”
If you can create content and ads that are relevant to these micro-moments, you’ll be more likely to reach potential customers when they’re actively searching for information.
Looking to drive demand and increase ARR? Get strategies and actionable tactics from our top experts from DOM and Google in this webinar, “Getting SaaS-y With Google.”
What B2B brands are successfully leveraging micro-moments?
If you go through the archive of content related to micro moments on Think With Google, you will find a lot of intel about the B2C and DTC customer journey.
But many leading brands are using content on their website to position themselves for B2B micro moments.
Check out four use cases that caught our attention below. Learn why they stood out and what type of impact these pages are having on the search engine rankings and traffic flow for each site, too.
I Want To Know Moment: Salesforce’s “What Is Customer Service?” Page
Checking in at 1,586 words, Salesforce’s answer to the question “what is customer service?” is lengthy. If there’s one thing all online marketing pros know the search engines enjoy, it’s topics discussed in-depth, in-text.
But Salesforce doesn’t stop there. In addition, there are quotes made to standout, a video, multiple stat graphics and a top 8 list of ways to improve customer service.
In modern online marketing, pages like this need to do much more than simply answer a question in depth. To really create a champion webpage to cover an “I want to know” micro moment, consider answering follow up questions and propose solutions to the reader to help them answer the question without leaving your website.
According to March 2022 research from SEMRUSH, this particular page ranks for nearly 6,500 keywords and accounts for almost 1.4% of Salesforce’s organic search traffic.
More Traffic Means More Growth.
See How This SaaS Turned SEO
Into It’s Top Source Of Leads & Traffic.
I Want To Go Moment: Svitla’s “Software Development Companies Near Me” Blog Post
The hero image for this blog post from Svitla – a software development company that has made the Inc. 5000 twice – really says it all for the content that follows down the page.
If your business is looking for software development solutions near your location, Svitla is able to provide it.
Are they actually located in your area? Well, maybe. They have 11 locations globally while they primarily operate from their headquarters in Marin County, CA. What makes this blog post so successful is the fact that it leverages SEO best practices for the keyword phrase software development companies near me by using the term in important content areas:
- The URL
- The title tag and meta description
- The subheadings
- The first paragraph
Svitla is limited in its ability to rank in Google Maps results outside of their 11 locations. Instead, with this blog, they can generate visibility for their brand outside of their local markets The moment someone decides they need to find a service provider nearby and the local results aren’t interesting – they will likely find Svitla.
According to March 2022 research from SEMRUSH, this particular page ranks for around 8 keywords and accounts for almost 3% of their organic search traffic.
Blogging Means Business.
One SaaS Saw 367% Traffic Lift Thanks To SEO.
Here’s How We Did It.
I Want To Do Moment: ZDNet’s “How to Find and Remove Spyware” Article
If a person finds spyware on their mobile device, where are they going to go to find the steps they need to take?
A sales page for a software? Or an article that explains what’s going on, what went wrong, and how it can be fixed?
ZDNet’s article does a thorough job of explaining the basics of spyware and how it has progressed over the years. But, instead of simply providing the basic info and suggesting someone contact their preferred provider to have it removed, ZDNet does the unthinkable… provides readers with 7 options for removing spyware from their phone.
Thorough, helpful content like this goes a long way towards building trust with your brand and establishes your staff as experts on a topic when searchers need to know something.
According to March 2022 research from SEMRUSH, this particular page ranks for over 3,300 keywords in Google and accounts for over 6,000 visits per month from the search engine.
One Software Company Saw It’s
Page 1 Keyword Ranks
Double Thanks To Posting And Sharing.
Here’s How We Helped.
I Want To Buy Moment: ShipStation’s Homepage
While ShipStation’s homepage is not a landing page per se, it certainly hits on some of the major best practices we see creating success when people are searching with the intent to buy a product or service.
- Call to action buttons in a complementary color that stands out, above the fold
- Easily recognizable logos from their integration partners that quickly builds credibility
- Visual elements that quickly explain their solution and it’s value proposition
- Links to benefits and case studies that validate their solution before a footer call to action
According to March 2022 research from SEMRUSH, this particular page ranks for over 6,300 keywords in Google and accounts for nearly 46% of their visits per month from the search engine.
Our CRO Strategies Helped An
Award Winning Firm
Increase Trial Starts 2,800%.
Learn How We Helped.
Final tips for using micro-moments in your marketing
Here are a few tips for using micro-moments to improve your SEO and digital advertising campaigns:
- Create content that’s relevant to the four types of micro-moments.
- Make sure your website is optimized for mobile.
- Optimize your ads for specific micro-moments.
- Use Google AdWords to create targeted ads. For more on this, check out this post and this post from my colleague Leland Reed.
- Track user behavior on your website and use that data to create even more relevant content.
In this day and age of the Internet, nearly anyone with a following online or an archive of content can call themselves a “thought leader.” If your website, ads, and messaging aren’t optimized around the four micro moments in the customer journey, your content won’t be found at the right times people are searching for them.
This can lead to a high volume of unqualified or irrelevant traffic coming to your pages, killing your engagement and conversion rates in spite of an increase in eyeballs.
The bottom line? Micro-moments are important, so make sure you’re taking advantage of them in your marketing campaigns on the right pages, at the right times.
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