Relevancy

Search engine marketing gives you a rare opportunity to pause and think about the kind of people you want to attract to your website. The right keyword can attract a quality lead. It’s a good opportunity to spend time examining how you appeal to your target audiences.

I like to start by asking clients some questions:

• Who are we trying to reach through search? Describe her to me.
• Why are we trying to reach her? How does she bring value?
• What is she trying to find? What information is valuable to her?
• What do we want her to do? How can we help her while helping us?

When we get through the big questions, I like to put together a searcher profile. I describe the person, note what motivates her, and list her three or four important search needs. I also like to place the client’s goal in with this profile.

A majority of the time I find that clients aren’t that in tune with their users search patterns or needs. We spend some time role playing, discussing different customer segments, and working through product search scenarios.

Whenever budgets allow, I like to push for a more direct way to find out what is in the heads of target audiences. An online survey is a wonderful way to get good data. A simple tool like SurveyMonkey and an incentive to participate (receive a _____ [fill in the blank]) can work.

What does this survey look like? That’s fodder for a new blog post.