subject: SEO requires audience knowledge [print this page] SEO requires audience knowledge SEO requires audience knowledge
Lots of site owners forget all about their real audience when they SEO. This is a shame because not only are human internet users the people you ultimately have to please, failing to please your human audience can have a big, bad effect on search engine optimisation. If internet users click away from your site, the search engines take note.
It's reasonable to question why internet users can have such a big part in a process that is all about the search engines. The techniques of SEO might be designed to grab the attention of the search engines, but that's only part of the equation. Mixed in with the other factors of the algorithm are factors of user behaviour. If your site develops a history of putting internet users off, or if it fails to attract clicks from within the search pages, your ranking will ultimately go down. You and the search engines are really pursuing the same goal: an attractive, gripping, informative site that closely matches the search query.
This means that if you want your SEO to succeed, you have to study what your target audience wants. There are a few questions you need to ask during your initial research period.
1. What do you offer? This isn't a philosophical question, but a practical one. What sort of product or service do you deal in? Ask yourself what searches your target audience will be using to find you. This is a question you need to ask even if your site doesn't directly get profit from its topic, such as sites displaying paid advertising. This will give you your main keyword categories.
2. What search engines are your users used to? Although Google has the lion's share of the search market, some groups of users habitually use other search engines. If your target market is one of these groups, optimising for Google is a waste of time. Talk to us at SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk about defining your target groups for search engine optimization.
3. What information do users want? Most internet searches are about finding information. You need to be able to predict the kind of information each keyword is a search for, and provide it in easy-to-find form on your landing pages. Without this, you risk having frustrated users bounce right back to the search engines.
4. What style is most comfortable? It's a consideration not many websites seem to account for, but design is very important to retaining users. If your target user group is used to professional-looking sites, having a site that is a little avant garde in its design is not going to put them at their ease.
5. What content is the most enthralling? Different types of internet users will be attracted to different kinds of content. Some users prefer to read things in a blog or article, while some like things presented step-by-step. Your content should always be a little varied, to keep things interesting, but it's important to know which format your target group will be comfortable with.
