Over the last several years I’ve noticed an interesting trend as my SEO programs matured.
The more I worked with brands, the more I appreciated that they were in the business of people.
It was only logical that my SEO initiatives would find their way back to our target audiences.
However what’s not understood or as appreciated is the need to tailor our optimizations to our target audiences and their pain points.
In today’s post, I want to discuss how audience research can impact SEO initiatives and what tools you can use to ensure that your website continues to be tailored towards your audience.
Keyword Targeting Shortcomings
For as long as SEO has been around, there’s always been a major focus on short tail keywords.
These types of phrases, one or two or three words long, typically amass high volume.
So it’s not unheard of for brands to place a huge priority on these keywords, going so far as to count ranking on position 1 or the first page as a major win.
But your targeting continues to have some major flaws in ensuring clients and customers convert.
Let’s talk about it.
Volume does not equal conversion
As SEO consultants and agencies, we want to make sure that we display an ROI to our SEO programs.
It makes sense why we focus on short tail phrasing; the more traffic we drive the more conversions we’ll see.
It’s not a bad approach to SEO but it’s not a complete one either.
There are so many things that happen after a user clicks to a website that impacts conversions that it would be negligent to stop thinking about the user after they made the click.
A major shortcoming of the short tail phrases includes the inability to tell webmasters how users interact with a website and their pain points.
Yes, there might be keyword research that guides us on both but this comes after focusing on short tail performance.
How do we curb this?
Well, we need to understand our audiences.
Leaning into your audience needs
Our audiences are looking to satisfy a specific need. But that need does not remain consistent throughout the entire buying journey.
That is to say, someone who begins preliminary research on a topic has different needs than someone who has done in-depth research on a specific product.
Example: Tool Company
I’ve worked with a specialized tool client who has an avid fan base.
This population is fully aware of the product suite and already has favorite products.
However, these folks sit at the bottom of the purchasing funnel; they use branded search phrases and know what they want to buy.
On the other side of the spectrum, this client wanted to reach out to new customers but they wanted to understand what value they can offer to a new audience that sits at the top of the purchasing funnel.
In a case like this, a brand should not treat both types of customers the same.
Rather, customers that sit at the top of the funnel need education on the benefits of the product.
This can be accomplished at the parent category level, or by creating a guided experience with varying uses from which a new customer can benefit.
That is, do they need support around the home, fixing machines, being outdoors? Which variation of the tool would serve their needs?
Conversely, for users that are lower in the purchasing funnel, the experience might be more direct.
They know what they want; they just need help finding or purchasing it.
In a case like this, they may need to lean on user experience best practices and behavioral sciences to understand how to expedite conversions.
Although this isn’t directly tied to SEO, the distinction between audiences can have detrimental effects on how users convert on our websites.
Understanding your audiences
In order to pinpoint what content needs to be written and why, it’s significant to understand your audience.
It shouldn’t have to be a case where you sell everything to everyone; you have to understand which audiences need which experience.
Knowing your audiences will allow you to narrow your focus and resources.
How do you identify your audience for SEO purposes?
Buyer Personas
A persona is meant to summarize the characteristics of a specific buyer; brands can have multiple personas.
When I engage with a brand, one of the first questions I ask is, “Who are your audiences made up of? Do you all have buyer personas?”
I want to understand how a user searches and this is heavily revealed via personas.
Companies invest heavily into gathering buyer personas; reason being, what better way to sell to customers than to plan everything from content strategy, product development, brand styling, so that it resonates with the right audience.
That said, ask your organization or your client directly if they’ve researched their buyers and have buyer personas available.
Don’t hold back, let them know that you’re trying to understand as much as possible about their buyers so as to craft a custom SEO strategy.
If brands don’t have this sort of information, it’s ok – it shows that there is a gap in their formal understanding of their buyers. You’re challenging the brand in a good way.
By asking, you’re making them aware of the need and helping them further.
If they do have buyer persona information, they should be able to walk you through their findings or share documentation (mostly in the form of PowerPoint documents or PDFs).
UX Team
I feel that the UX team of an organization is such a wealth of information.
It seems as though they perceive pain points immediately but also have a firm understanding of target audiences.
What’s also amazing about this team is their best practices typically align really well with SEO best practices.
Conversations with a UX team serve as a means to understand what their goals are and what impact they may have for SEO.
For example, I was brought on board to discuss drop down content that was toggle-able via JavaScript as it is more user friendly and easier to digest.
However, the content that was behind the dropdown was only generated by JS and didn’t sit within the HTML.
This meant that search engines would have to find the JS and render it differently than HTML; impacting how the content is consumed and SEO performance.
Through conversations with UX, we placed the content inline with other HTML and were able to assure that the experience was optimal without affecting SEO.
Heatmap Software
Let’s say you don’t have access to a UX team or buy personas documents, you’re still able to gather data on your website visitors from organic search through the use of heatmap software.
I use HotJar, the heatmap and behavioral analytics tool. They have a free plan that I use to view recordings of visitors that come to my website; this then helps me make informed decisions on content updates.
Additionally, Microsoft Clarity serves as a great substitute for HotJar. The major benefits to Microsoft Clarity over HotJar is the former is free without limitations and still serves quality heatmap software. What’s more, you’re able to register for Microsoft Clarity through Bing Webmaster Tools.
Heatmap software has been critical in helping me understand what aspects of a content the users care about, how they behave when they’ve arrived on a website, and what aspects of the website / page may be critical to restructure.
Using Audience feedback and engagement metrics for SEO
Now you have a wealth of information about your users and how they behave.
What can you do with this information?
Tackle Pain Points
In my early example of the tool company, my client’s customers’ pain points were centered around how to choose a specific tool.
This pain point wasn’t managed on a product detail page; that content is too focused on folks at the bottom of the purchasing funnel.
We focused on customers and journeys higher in the funnel, via category landing pages.
Understanding your audiences and how they behave allows you to build the right content for the right intent, no matter where they sit on the purchasing funnel.
Another more relatable example comes from my website…
I was able to discover areas where my site visitors were “rage clicking” – that’s when they click on the screen very rapidly.
This allowed me to realize they care about,
- Styling: Users care about legibility
- Heading: This allowed them to scroll quickly to a subsection
- Linking: Which links they cared about more than others
Need for Additional Content
I began to use long tail search query data from Google Search Console to help guide what users were searching for.
For example, I have an extensive list of website migration posts; as I began to analyze ranking performance via GSC, I noticed that Google was ranking my posts for FAQ related queries.
These queries weren’t ranking high but my posts were relevant enough to rank, regardless.
Based on user behavior, I saw a need for additional content.
I created a Website Migrations FAQ post that attempted to answer various questions users had about website migrations.
Although your strategy may require a different approach, the advice is still sound: lean on what your audience is telling and create a content experience around it.
Help Users Feel Comfortable Converting
This is a big one that I’ve been pushing for over the last several quarters and it was born out of Andrew Holland’s “Messy Middle” summary of Google’s “Messy Middle” research.
The research states, shopping behavior is complex and there is no direct means to convert.
Rather, the buying experience should be tailored based on the audience’s needs…
In fact, this post is heavily influenced by Google’s research.
I urge my clients to help their customers feel comfortable converting – i.e. the specialized tool example.
Another area of opportunity is their PDPs.
A lot of brands, particularly in the luxury space, are reluctant to implement Ratings and Reviews, due to fear of tarnishing their image.
The drawback is, you don’t collect data from users, knowing what’s bothering them; if you don’t know, then how can fix an issue?
If the issue persists, customers aren’t educated and won’t convert as easily.
What’s more, PDPs can house Warranty and Return content. This information is meant to build trust with the user but also have content that answers specific questions readily available.
Again, it’s mean to help users convert quicker.
Summary
This post wasn’t meant to tell SEOers to not rely on keywords; rather it was meant to urge SEOers to think more about customers and audiences.
Keyword research is at the foundation of SEO but our customers and audiences are the lifeblood of our business.
Do yourself a favor…
Take a step back, understand who your SEO program should benefit.
And curate an experience that’s guided by your audience’s needs.
