Do you know what the difference is between mediocre and next level search marketing? According to Carolyn Lyden, writing for Search Engine Land, the difference is user experience.

Creating a Good User Experience

Why it’s Necessary

Keyword stuffing used to be enough to optimize your client’s SEO. However, too many companies started using that strategy, so Google began punishing those who use it. Now, the key to successful search marketing is providing content that searchers find valuable. And you have to ensure your client’s site offers a good user experience. If the searcher’s experience on your client’s site is unpleasant, they won’t become one of your client’s customers. If that’s the case, what was the point of that searcher stopping by the website in the first place?

Using Empathy

What’s the easiest way to create content that will guarantee a good user experience? Tapping into your empathetic side. It’s the best way to anticipate what searchers are expecting from your client’s online content. Lyden provides a few suggestions on how to use empathy to provide a good user experience.

Get Curious

You know what assume stands for, right? Just in case your parents never told you, “assuming makes an ass out of u and me.” The outcome of assuming parts of your SEO strategy is no different. You can assume that you know what your client’s target audience is searching for and that your client’s site is perfectly optimized for those searches. However, that’s rarely the case. You won’t know exactly what kind of content and keywords searchers are looking up until you research it. Once you know what searchers are interacting with most on your client’s site, you can optimize SEO to reflect that data. This will make your client’s site show up in more searches and improve the associated user experience by providing content that searchers consider valuable to them.

Challenge Your Perspective

Just because you type or speak a certain way doesn’t mean that others do. Are your sure that your client’s user experience is tailored to their target audience? And are you sure of who your client’s target audience is? You may be surprised at who is really searching for your client’s products or services if you haven’t done your research.

Lyden gives an example of a mattress company that assumed their target audience was men in their 30s. The company was founded by men, so their marketing team assumed they would easily attract customers similar to themselves. As such, they tailored their marketing and SEO strategies to target middle-​aged men to give them a good user experience. It wasn’t until later, after they conducted research on a whim as to who was really visiting their website the most often that they discovered that their primary audience was actually women over the age of 60.

Don’t waste time tailoring your client’s user experience to an inaccurate target audience. You can start the discover process of who your client’s target audience is by looking up audience profiles on AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel. Take Auto Painting/​Window Tinting Shoppers, for example. You may have imagined higher-​income men as the primary audience. In reality, the demographics are split more evenly (59.1% are male and 40.9% are female). And the income bracket of the largest percentage of customers is between $25,000 and $50,000. Without that knowledge, you would have designed the user experience to be way off base. Don’t let that happen to your clients!