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7 Ways to Research and Analyze Your SEO Audience


when i describe Search Engine OptimizationI explained that it is a mix of marketing, know-how and psychology.

From a marketing perspective, you must have a comprehensive understanding of your product, the problem it solves, and how to best communicate with your audience.

From a technical standpoint, you must be able to create a foundation for your website to improve search performance.

Now, from a psychological standpoint… this is where SEO can really come into play.

Your SEO efforts will truly pay off if you can learn not only how to identify ideal website visitors, but also who they are and what motivates them. You’ll get traffic numbers and ROI to support your efforts.

SEO is not just about number (i.e. keyword ranking position, number of backlinks, traffic, etc.).It’s also about Know your audience And build SEO activities around that information.

When SEO is centered on the right audience, targeted traffic increases, resulting in more conversions.

There are several ways to help you research and analyze your SEO audience.

As you’ll see in the list below, within each method there are tools to make things easier.

1. Use Keywords to Gather Demographics

keyword research It is one of the core tasks of SEO. Keywords should be targeted and related to your product or service, which you probably already know.

Once you have a solid list of keywords, pick the top five that best represent your brand and find out the demographics associated with those words and phrases.

Google Trends will give you demographic information about that location and show you how keywords are trending over time.

Google Trends really came in handy during the pandemic, when people’s online behavior was shifting rapidly.

One of my clients posted recipes and the question was the type of recipes people were looking for when they were stuck at home.

That’s banana bread.

Obviously, comfort food is the point when we can’t leave the house. You can see how the “banana bread” trend has skyrocketed in the screenshot below.

Google Trends ExampleScreenshot of Google Trends, June 2022

But what about demographics?

Google Trends provides a lot of data on location, but I also like to use another tool to get more demographic information, Demographics.io. The tool links demographic data to keywords.

Using the same banana bread example, here is the data from people who searched for this keyword.

Demographic ToolDemographics.io screenshot, June 2022

Tip: How to apply this information

Identifying demographics, including age, gender, and location, can help your SEO in many ways.

You can look for local linking opportunities in the geographic region where the query occurs.

Based on age and gender, you can identify topics, interests, and other terms related to these groups.

2. Determine who is visiting your site

This approach is a bit like drawing the target around the arrow.

However, it is important to understand who will visit your website and then you can determine if this is the right audience.

One of the easiest ways to get this information is Google Analytics.

In the Audience section, you can view a range of audience information, including age, gender, location, and interests, as follows:

Analyze demographicsGoogle Analytics screenshot, June 2022

Tip: How to apply this information

This data can provide insights into your audience and help you when you recommend content topics and target geographic areas.

On the other hand, you might look at this information and realize that it doesn’t align with your organization’s target market.

In this case, you need to take a close look at your keywords and content to make sure there are no misplacements.

3. Analyze other brands

To gather information about your target audience, you can look beyond your own website and analyze other brands and competitors.

You’ll be looking for demographics and psychographics – basically, you want to gather as many insights as possible. The following tools can help you with this type of analysis.

Mass broadcast

Mass broadcast Bring together insights on purchasing behavior, occupation, device usage, demographics, domain affinity, and more. The example below is an analysis of Goodreads.com.

Goodreads.com AnalysisScreenshot from Quantcast, June 2022

Goodreads.com AnalysisScreenshot from Quantcast, June 2022

audience

Note: I love this tool and use it a lot.

according to Listener Networkthey use eight different criteria to build audiences, “which can be combined to create highly targeted audiences: Demographics, Relationships, Behaviors (Activity), Conversations, IBM Watson Personality Insights, Location, Interests and Twitter personal information.”

audience Audience segments are then created by “clustering individuals based on ‘who knows who’ (i.e. how these individuals relate to each other). We take into account who follows whom and cluster them together – for example, if person A follows person B , then they will be brought together.”

The first screen of the report provides a snapshot of audience data, as shown below.

Audience InsightsAudiense screenshot, June 2022

The great thing about this tool is that you can dig a little further. Just see a breakdown of available information (see red box on screenshot).

Audiense Insights Good ReadsAudiense screenshot, June 2022

Tip: How to apply this information

Similar to the previous method, this data provides insight into your audience and helps you when you recommend content topics and target geographic areas.

You might also find some great link building ideas according to your interests.

4. Use Social Insights

Social platforms is one of the quickest ways to get audience information.

You can view follower/fan information directly on your company’s Facebook page, as shown below:

Facebook InsightsScreenshot from Facebook, June 2022

You can also view audience information for competitors and other brands follower.

The great thing about this tool is that it also gives you a word cloud to show you what users are talking about:

Followers word cloudScreenshot of Followerwonk, June 2022

Tip: How to apply this information

Specifically, the word cloud in Followerwonk can help you identify other keywords you might have missed, and also present content marketing ideas.

5. Send a survey

This method is the most straightforward of all the methods on this list. Send a survey if you want to better understand your audience.

To get a decent amount of survey returns, keep it short and sweet. Ask questions about basic demographics, general interests, pain points, and needs.

Here are great resources on how to create a survey: How to Create and Use Surveys for Content Marketing.

Tip: How to apply this information

Use the information you gather in your surveys to identify content opportunities, including images and videos, keyword targeting, and more.

6. Identify the problem

As Google increasingly directs search resultsit becomes even more important to identify common user issues.

Additionally, we want to predict long tail query our potential audience, so we can be in front of them at the right time. There are a number of tools that provide FAQs, including:

These tools come from a variety of data sources, so it’s worth checking out. Below is an example from AnswerThePublic.

Search Listening Tools AnswerThePublicScreenshot of AnswerThePublic, June 2022
Electric Vehicle Keywords from Answering the PublicScreenshot of AnswerThePublic, June 2022

Tip: How to apply this information

Create content around frequently asked questions to attract audiences to long-tail searches and increase your chances of appearing as a direct answer in Google SERPs.

7. Research secondary data

Once you know age/interests/etc. In your audience, you can fill in the gaps with further research. Look for research on one of the key aspects of your audience.

For example, if you’re sure your audience is baby boomers, go to Google Scholar and find published research on the group.

Tip: How to apply this information

Use this additional research to outline your personas and better understand who you are trying to target with SEO.

final thoughts

Seems like a lot of extra work before it gets to your audience Search Engine Optimization Tasks. However, it’s well worth it.

You’ll be able to drive better traffic to your website and increase your SEO ROI.

More resources:


Featured Image: fizkes/Shutterstock





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