Prioritise the person beyond the screen

Ebere says: “Focus on the user experience. This has always been my advice, but with the change in user search behaviour and the introduction of AI, it is even more important now.”

Why is user experience even more important in the age of AI?

“Before now, we looked at what keyword had the highest volume, because that showed what users were searching for. Then, we tried to write content for that keyword and track our ranking for that keyword. This is how SEO operated in the past, and that made sense.

With AI, however, it's possible for you to rank for that keyword without getting any conversions. You're ranking on the first page, but you might not even be getting any impressions. We have AI overviews, we have ‘from sources across the web’, and every day there's a new product coming from Google.

Also, users are no longer searching only on Google; they also have something else they search with. So, it makes sense that you're not just tracking keywords – you're going beyond the keywords and thinking, what is this user actually looking for?

We call it search intent. It’s about solving the real need of what users are actually looking for, and intuitively taking care of this in your content or your optimization.”

Since the SERP results on Google tend to be below an AI overview, are people not scrolling down to look at the conventional links nowadays?

“Yes, and most of those high-volume keywords are also informational.

If people are looking for the best hotel in London, they search ‘best hotel in London,’ and they get the answer from Google. They are not going to come down to look at your content, where you are listed as the best hotel and why they should choose you. People are searching for information, and the AI overview has wrapped it up for them and gives it to them in a flash.

Also, people have a low attention span, and that’s only increasing. People are looking for TL;DR. They want the summary. What's it about? Your AI overview and all of those other tools are giving it to them straight away. They are no longer scrolling down.

You could be ranking number three or four, but no one is coming down there to click on your content.”

What kinds of keyword phrases are good to target nowadays, or do you just think about users and write for them?

“Keywords are still important because they give you a clue or a window into what people are searching for. However, targeting those specific high-volume keywords that AI has already been trained for is going to be a miss.

When I’m creating content for a client, I don’t look at keywords. I do keyword research to look at the problems/issues that the users are interested in. Then, I create content to serve that.

Then, it’s possible for Google, AI, and chatbots to cite that content because this is new information. It's not just a keyword. It's information that they don't already have, and they are happy to cite it.

Take, for instance, the hotel we mentioned. If I'm just targeting ‘best hotels in London’, there is a high possibility that I'm not going to get a click. However, if I go further and write content about the best hotel in London for families with kids below X age, that's no longer a specific keyword; that is solving a specific problem for a particular audience. Families going to London with kids of that age will have specific things that they are interested in.

So, when I'm doing keyword research, I am doing it in terms of audience research or audience intent. What are these specific audiences interested in solving? Then, you write for those keywords.

That is the age that we are in right now. I like to borrow inspiration from people who do social media. They don't target specific keywords on their socials. They look at the product and the brand. They look for problems that users are interested in, and they write posts around them. They’re not just going on keyword tools, pulling out keywords, and writing content on those.”

When you’re brainstorming ideas around your customer's problems, how do you know that you're not missing out on opportunities?

“That is a possibility. Before now, we have used keyword clusters to make sure that we are not missing out on anything: we structured our keyword and tried to gain topical authority around that keyword. Now, I am trying to create audience clusters.

I look at the audience that is using the product or service, and write content based on what that specific audience is interested in solving. When you are looking at the structure of this content, it's not the same as when you are just writing content for keywords. We look at whether images, videos, or infographics would work there, instead of just putting in the keywords and moving on. Based on the audience, we know what should work on that page.

You can actually use keywords to do this research. Look at the questions this specific audience is searching for.

Communities and focus groups are great for that, because you can see the questions people are asking in that community. Reddit is a popular one, as is Quora. There are also closed communities like the Women in Tech SEO, where you see people coming back to ask similar questions. Then, you know that this specific group of people is interested in getting answers to that question.

That’s how you can do audience clustering: identify the audience that you are serving, then come up with a question that they are interested in tackling.

To come up with those questions, we still use keyword tools like Semrush to find the questions that are being asked concerning that service or product. Then, we look at communities and do social listening.

You can create an email just for the sake of listening to the audience. Create an email that targets something specific, like ‘hotel’, and see what Google shows you, what TikTok shows you, and what the Instagram algorithm shows you. You can then see the questions that people are asking in the comment sections as well.

Audience research is a whole lot of work, but it is worth it.”

Once you have come up with the questions that you want to address, how do you prioritise what needs to be written about first?

“We map it out quarterly, so we determine how many pieces of content we're going to write per quarter. We don't prioritise it based on volume, but based on where the business is right now, and what we want to achieve this quarter, then next quarter, and the quarter after that.

With a quarterly plan, you can review how you’re performing on the newer AI search engines and in traditional search. You're not committing to doing something for too long, because technology changes and the platforms that people use change as well.”

How do you know what type of content is best to produce?

“It depends on the problem and the intent.

Recently, I visited Amsterdam for a conference. I don't speak Dutch, and I had never been there before. When I booked my hotel, I knew that they had a pick-up and drop-off service, but I didn’t know how it worked. I couldn’t call, and I couldn’t email, so I went online and I searched.

I searched this long tail query about how to get to this hotel, where the pick-up location is, etc. I ended up on their website, where there was a video that walked me through the journey, directly to where the bus was parked. Then, there were pictures of the buses and a table that had the pick-up and drop-off times. That is a well-thought-out marketing plan.

It is not just keywords; it's thinking about the user. What is this user who is searching for these things interested in? This person has clearly never been there, and they have no idea about how the process works – that's why they are searching for this – so they made a video to walk me through it. You don't even need to know the language. You can actually see the person walking from where you are standing to where the buses are parked.

Put the user's experience at the forefront. Try to imagine yourself as the user. That will help you know how to structure your content.

Something else I try to do is the mum test. Assume that your mum is going to come to that page. How will you make it easiest for her? What would be the easiest way for your mum to consume that content and achieve her goal on that page? Make it as simple and easy to understand, as quickly as possible, so that the user doesn't get lost in what you're trying to say.

When a user lands on that page, what do you want them to do? Make it easy for them to grasp what you want them to do. Jade Pruett recently made a post where she was chatting about the use of a TL;DR for AI. She was saying that AI uses them, but it’s useful for humans as well. When they come to your page, they also want those key takeaways.

If you’re putting the user first, you need to be thinking about what they want. If it is a very long piece of content, then you want to include a small box with a summary or an overview that summarises everything on that page and makes it easy for the person to read.

Imagine your mum is going to come there, and make it easy for her.”

How do you decide upon the most likely intent for a question?

“When you're structuring the audience research, you should already be thinking about the intent for each question. Is their intent to buy? Is their intent to find their way? Is their intent to find information?

If their intent is information, make the information simple for them to grasp. If their intent is to buy, show them the product, make it easy for them to understand the benefits of the product, and make it easy for them to buy.”

Ebere, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“AI is here, and it's probably not going anywhere.

Foundational SEO is very important, but it’s also important that you look beyond keywords and look at the person beyond the screen. Optimize for them, prioritise them, and make them the focal point.”

Ebere Cecilia Jonathan is an SEO Strategist. Find out more over on LinkedIn.