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This blog post originally appeared on the Exposure Ninja blog - 5 Digital Marketing Strategies for IT Support Companies
In today’s world, IT support companies are becoming increasingly important. This also means that there’s been an increase in the number of these companies. So how can you set yourself apart from the rest of the crowd?
This guide covers five digital marketing strategies that you can use to turn your website into a lead generation machine and drive more traffic to your site.
Let’s jump right in with content marketing, one of the most important marketing pillars for any business.
As an IT support company, you have a huge scope for the type of content you can share to attract more clients.
You’re in a position to target the kind of questions your ideal customers search for before they convert, as well as targeting keywords and phrases colder leads may search while they’re fixing their own tech, and then entice them in with a compelling call to action or a great mailing list offering.
Depending on whether your ideal customer is someone looking for an IT support company for their personal tech, or someone looking for an IT support company for their business, your content will be slightly different.
Later in this guide, we’ll cover how you can conduct keyword research to find out the type of questions your ideal customer is searching for.
Blogs and Guides
Blogs and guides will be one of the cornerstones of your content marketing strategy.
Potential customers will likely find your website looking for basic tech support for their company and then realise that they need to hire an IT support company full time.
Start by thinking about the types of questions your customers ask you or the questions they ask before becoming your customers.
This could be things like “work PC won’t boot up” or “office Wi-Fi problems”.
These are relatively simple queries, but they could be the start of someone realising their company needs IT support.
They may make other adjacent searches too, such as “best company PCs” or “best office printer”. These searches show someone who could be about to upgrade their business’ tech and may need ongoing support.
Even if you don’t sell PCs and printers as part of your service offering, you can use your blog to make recommendations to these searchers and include CTAs throughout your guides to encourage the reader to consider an ongoing tech support service for all their new kit.
If you’re stuck for topics to write about, a great place to start is Also Asked or Answer the Public.
These websites give you a list of frequently asked questions on search engines based on the keywords you type in. The questions aren’t always phrased perfectly, but you can use them for inspiration.
By typing “business tech support” into Answer the Public, we already have at least one blog title to work from.
We also have multiple key phrases that we might want to rank service pages for, such as:
If you don’t find what you’re looking for on websites like these, your keyword and competitor research will help you identify other content topics you should focus on.
Infographics
Infographics are the ideal way to explain complex ideas in a way that’s easier to understand. This can be great for sharing a step-by-step tutorial on how to do simple tech repairs yourself or explaining the complexities of installing a server in an office.
Here’s an infographic that would fit into a guide about setting up a server for your business. It will help your audience understand your guide better.
Image source: Lucidchart
Including useful infographics in your blogs can also help you to get quality backlinks in the future. If you have a great infographic, others who share it will link back to you when they share it in their own guides.
Backlinking is covered in more detail further down this guide.
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Your website is a key element in your wider marketing strategy. Without a good website, your digital marketing efforts could go to waste.
Your website needs to represent your best salesperson. Keep this in mind while adding your calls to action and unique selling points.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Improving the digital marketing strategy for your IT support company will drive more traffic to your website, so you want to make sure your website is optimised to convert that traffic.
There are a few ways you can convert the traffic that lands on your website, depending on the stage of the buyer’s journey they are at.
For your main CTA — we suggest having two — one for those who are ready to convert and those who want to learn more.
These work well for those still unsure — they’re no-obligation and will help move your potential customer down the sales funnel.
Good IT support CTAs
Bad IT support CTAs
For those who are ready to convert, it’s crucial that you have your contact details on your homepage. We recommend adding them to the top right corner of your homepage and making them click-to-call or click-to-email.
As the top right corner is the standard location for contact details on many websites, your customers will know exactly where to look. There are times to innovate, but this isn’t one of them.
Check out this webinar — How to Build a Conversion-optimised Website
Search Engine Optimisation
Now you’ve got a conversion-optimised website; you need to increase your traffic. One way to do this is via search engine optimisation (SEO), which will help you appear higher in search results for various search terms.
As covered in the content section, targeting the right keywords is essential when it comes to SEO.
Keyword Research
You will need to target a variety of keywords, including both short and long. Shorter keywords are around one to two words, whereas longer keywords are often the phrases your target customers search while looking for IT support services.
Shorter keywords are usually best suited to service pages and longer keywords work best for blog content.
There are several different SEO tools you can use to find keywords. Our personal favourite is Semrush, which you can try for free for 30 days with our link thankyouninjas.com.
Starting by searching for the keyword “IT support”, we can already see that this keyword is searched nearly 10,000 times a month by UK searchers.
With this data and the relevance of the keyword in mind, we will decide to target this keyword.
The next step is to type the keyword into Google in an incognito window to ensure your past searches don’t influence the results.
The first thing we notice is that there are a lot of ads on this search term, two of which target a location. This shows that this is a competitive keyword that businesses are willing to spend money on and that multiple businesses are targeting searchers in their local area.
In Semrush, we can also see an estimation of how much these advertisers are spending per click, which is $11.22 or around £10.
Below this is a map pack showing local businesses. If your business services a local area, it’s important that you set up your Google Business Profile to give you a chance to appear here. If you are local, take a look at regional variations of your keywords, such as “IT support in Nottingham” or “IT support near me”.
Below the map pack are the organic results. There are also some questions that people also ask related to your keyword. Make a note of these, as they could be ideal phrases to target with blog content.
Pay attention to the type of content that is ranking. The top organic result is a service page, as are the ones below it, so you will want to optimise a service page to compete with these other businesses.
There are also some results for people looking to work in IT support. If all the search results were IT support jobs, you would want to consider targeting another keyword, as the search intent here would not match your business.
Now that you’ve looked at these results, you will know if you should or shouldn’t target this keyword and the type of content you should create in order to rank.
We recommend you find between 25 and 50 keywords that you want to rank for. You can do this by typing your main keyword into an SEO tool which will generate a list of keywords for you. They will not all suit your business, so it’s important to repeat the above process for each one.
You can also use an SEO tool, like Semrush* or the Moz Keyword Research Tool, to see which keywords your website is already ranking for. Using Air IT as an example, by typing their domain into the Semrush domain overview, we can get a closer look at their top organic keywords.
You can see which pages are ranking for each keyword. This tool is also useful for seeing which keywords your competitors are ranking for and the type of content ranking.
SEO Competitor Research
To refine your keyword research even further, you can take a look at what your competitors are doing. Using just one to five keywords, you can identify your online competitors — businesses who rank for your keywords.
Take a look at:
This will influence your own strategy and will help you find additional keywords. The goal is to take inspiration from your competitors and create better content.
Not only will it help you with organic traffic, but it can also help you with your PPC keywords, which we’ll cover later in this guide.
Backlinking
With a good content marketing strategy comes good backlinks. Or so you’d hope. Backlinking often takes additional effort on your part, but it’s well worth the returns.
Backlinking is when another website links back to your website. This could be because they found your content or service useful and wanted to link back to your site.
The main way to get backlinks is through outreach. This outreach could be requesting that publications link back to your article or offering a guest post they can upload to their own site.
It’s nice to think that these publications will find your content by themselves, but 99% of the time, you need to reach out to them first.
Start by researching some publications that suit your business. For IT support companies, these would be publications your ideal clients read. For example, if you mostly serve businesses, you’d want to be featured on business websites. If you serve schools, you want to reach out to education publications.
You can also find out which publications are linking to your competitors via a backlink tool, such as the Small SEO Tools backlink checker, or by using an SEO tool like Semrush*. Search for your competitors’ URLs and look at the results.
Small SEO Tools Backlink Checker
Semrush Backlink Checker
You can then take a look through the websites that are linking back to your competitors. Analyse the content that these publications are linking back to. Is it well-researched, in-depth content with video guides? Is it a study with interesting statistics?
You also need to look at the other content shared on the publication’s website. How could you create something that would fit in with the rest of their content?
Don’t buy backlinks in bulk. Google’s algorithm is advanced enough to identify when a business has paid for backlinks unrelated to their website. Your website could be penalised as a result, which could push you down in search results.
Email marketing as an IT support company is the perfect way to cultivate your audience, both existing clients and cold leads.
By offering downloadables on your website, you can gather the emails of potential leads and send them helpful emails that also help move them along the sales funnel.
These downloadables could be included in articles about certain topics or on service pages as a secondary call to action for those not ready to convert.
Examples include:
You can adapt your blog content for emails, as you’ve already identified that these topics are ones your audience are interested in. You can send a shortened version in the email and link to the full article.
Examples of email topics could be:
Think about the type of content that would make your ideal customer open your email.
This webinar goes into great detail about setting up your own automated email campaigns.
When it comes to tech issues, video content is a must-have. It’s a great way to physically show someone how to resolve a tech problem themselves, and if they watch your video and still can’t fix the problem, they will be more likely to call you if you include a good call to action in the video. Just a simple, “if this didn’t solve your problem, get in touch.” can go a long way.
A quick YouTube search for a problem that may seem simple to tech-savvy folk — “how to make a new folder”, returned a top video with over 1 million views.
You can use your blogs as a script for your video content. If people search questions on Google, the search engine may give them video results too, so your keyword research works for both platforms.
Look at the content other tech support companies share on YouTube, take inspiration from them, and then create something better.
Popular YouTuber LinusTechTips started as a tech advice channel, explaining the intricacies of motherboards and setting up your PC at home.
Now, he has over 14 million subscribers, and his full-time job is YouTube rather than tech support.
That doesn’t stop him from sharing tech support tips from time to time.
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There are two different audiences you’ll want to target with pay-per-click advertising across social media and search engines.
The first audience is those looking for an IT support company in an emergency. Their office’s server just went down and they don’t know what to do. No one can do any work, and there’s a huge project due today. They’ve typed “IT support emergency” into Google, and your ad is the first one that pops up.
You’ve included that you can offer on-site or remote support instantly, that you’re experts in helping businesses and you’ve included your phone number in the ad.
They get in touch, you help them and then, after a few automated emails and follow-ups to make sure they haven’t had any problems with the server since, you convert them into a contracted customer. All because your ad was in the right place, at the right time, targeting the right keywords.
It’s great if you offer a free quote or a free IT audit, but people looking for an IT support company in an emergency don’t care about that. Pitch these things when you follow up with them instead.
Your other type of customer is those looking to hire an IT support company on a retainer. They’re looking for clear USPs and reasons why they should click your ad over the other results. If you offer free quotes or a free IT audit, include that in your ad.
For social media ads, it’s best to retarget those who visited your website but didn’t convert. Without this, your ads will likely be shown to individuals who aren’t interested in IT support. By retargeting those who have visited your site previously, you know there’s a level of interest there and they’ll be more likely to click on your ad and convert.
How to Find Keywords for PPC
Your keyword research for your pay-per-click ads will be very similar to the research you conducted for your organic traffic.
The main difference is focusing on the ads running on those keywords when you type them into Google. If there are no ads, this may be a low-value keyword that won’t get you any clicks. On the other hand, it could be that you’re serving a niche and no one is advertising for that keyword yet. If there are a lot of organic search results above yours for this search term, PPC could be a good short-term way to make sure you rank on page one for these more niche searches.
If there are lots of ads, assess how vital this keyword is to you and if you believe you’ll be able to compete in the space. If not, it might be worth targeting a different keyword.
Competitor Ad Analysis
You can improve the quality of your ads by identifying what is working for your competitors.
Using a tool like Semrush, you can see your competitor’s estimated ad spend and the ad creative they are using.
By looking at how much traffic these ads are receiving, and the keywords they are targeting, you will have an idea of whether this is a good keyword to target.
Download a free copy of our bestselling book,
"How To Get To The Top of Google"
We’ve identified five areas of your digital marketing that you can use to bring more traffic to your website and turn leads into sales.
These strategies are:
Implementing any of these strategies will take time, and you don’t need to do all of them at once. Pick the ones you believe will serve your business best and then branch out from there.
*Some links within this article are affiliate links which Exposure Ninja receives a fee for promoting (these links are not sponsored). Exposure Ninja only promotes services we already use within our marketing stack.
