omer-centric SEO: Adapting Your Search Strategy for Success //

Since the advent of search engines, search behavior has changed. Google’s announcement that 15% of searches are new highlights the dynamic nature search.

This shows a weakness of traditional keyword search which relies heavily on a feedback loop from users that limits the discovery and exploration of new topics.

This article explores the ways in which incorporating customer insights into your strategy will help you to succeed in an ever-changing search landscape.

Keyword research has its limitations

Keyword research is a long-standing element of content creation. A keyword-centric strategy is not able to anticipate future trends or prioritize the customer.

This approach is unfortunately common in SEO campaigns. This approach is common in SEO campaigns.

Using keyword analysis alone can lead to missed opportunities, and hinder your business’s ability to stay ahead of the competition.

We must adapt our SEO strategies to the changing needs of searchers.

Customer insight: A strategic approach

When we prioritize customer understanding over traditional keyword research, we gain a significant competitive advantage. Engaging with customers and connecting can reveal content ideas that your competitors may not have thought of.

This strategy allows you to be the first in search engine results pages (SERPs) and increase your visibility.

Delivering new content that is aligned to the needs of your customers can further compound this advantage and establish your brand as an authority in your niche or industry.

In order to establish and increase topical expertise, you should strive to produce comprehensive and focused content that is a source of authority.

By identifying and filling in the content gaps left behind by your competitors, you can demonstrate your expertise. You could create a collection of high-quality content such as blog posts or knowledge bases.

It is also important to continue to bring new information and ideas to the internet.

Content roadmapping: How to expand your strategy

The content roadmapping process should go beyond keyword research. Your business can deliver more value to its target audience by adopting a customer-centric strategy.

Here are some alternative methods to help you shape your future content strategy. Depending on your business objectives, you may choose to use any or all of these methods.

Method 1: Tasks to be done

By examining what customers do with a product, a jobs-to be-done analysis (JTBD), helps you to focus on the desired outcomes of your customers. This provides valuable insight by:

• Evaluation of the needs and wants of customers.
• Identify the main tasks and those that are related.
• Understand the steps to complete each task.

By conducting a JTBD, you can create targeted content that meets the needs of your customers and helps to foster deeper relationships.

Consider Screaming Frog. A company that wants to improve its SEO Spider and perform a JTBD Analysis. The company may consider crawling sitemaps to be their primary task, while scraping websites using the extraction tool is a secondary job.

During analysis, it is possible to discover the problem with using the XPath output of the browser in the extraction process. It may not always produce the desired results.

They decided to simplify the learning process by creating a series tutorials for XPath syntax.

Method 2: Product-led Search Engine Optimization

This approach will help you develop a product to drive your SEO strategy, rather than relying on SEO for marketing the product.

It is important to create a new product or one that is better than its competitors, while also being programmatic and scalable.

You can increase search demand by creating an offer that encourages users to click on SERPs. This will also bring new resources to web.

Primary research is a great way to learn about your customers and their needs.

Paycheck Calculators by SmartAsset is a successful product which may have been used as part of an SEO product-led strategy.

A paycheck calculator is a valuable tool for a website that focuses on finance. Customers who manually calculate paychecks to plan their budgets and finances will appreciate it.

SmartAsset’s paycheck calculator is a popular tool, and it has been adopted by many users over the years.

SmartAsset created 50 pages of high-quality calculators, each tailored to a specific state. Their product-led effort was successful by ensuring that the product and market fit.

When this happens, customers will naturally support the product because it is aimed at helping them.

Method 3: Primary research

Primary research can help you to learn more about your customers by:

• Subject matter expert interviews.
• Customer interviews.
• Survey data.
• User product data.
• More.

This process can help you uncover valuable insights to enhance your existing content or inspire new ideas for content that has yet to be explored.

As you collect and synthesize insights from customers, new and compelling content ideas will naturally arise. You may find that your team is inspired to come up with new and innovative topics.

Insights from primary research are also beneficial to marketing, product, and support teams. These insights can be used to create a holistic strategy that enhances customer experience beyond SERPs and throughout the entire buyer journey.

Presenting research to budget-conscious teams as a solution that offers a holistic approach to customer experience can help gain leadership support.

Search engine optimization that is customer-centric will help you dominate the search results

To thrive in search, you need a customer-centric approach to SEO. Customer insights, beyond keywords, will give you a competitive advantage in SEO.

Search engines are aiming to provide diverse and helpful results.

Businesses with the highest topical authority are rewarded by being viewed as trusted sources and gaining authority in SERPs.

It’s time for us to move beyond keywords and embrace the customer insight. You’ll improve your SEO and build stronger relationships with your customers.

The post Customer Centric SEO: Adapting Your Search Strategy for Success first appeared on Search Engine Land.