Most of the statistics you’ll read about or are relevant to search engine optimization relates to users:
- According to Think With Google, there are more searches on mobile than on desktop, and that 52.2% of all website traffic comes from mobile phones.
- 7% of search queries contain four or more words
- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine
The first indicates users’ preferred browsing device, the second informs you of their behavior, and the third gives you an insight into the buyers’ journey.
As a digital marketing agency in Orlando, we know all too well how essential these pieces of information are for your SEO strategy. This also means that it pays to create a plan that’s centered on users.
Why Focus on the User?
Search engines and, in turn, SEO is rooted in technology. But their primary purpose is inherently human. The point of SEO is to put your website in front of internet users, attract them with your content, and turn them into paying customers. In short, turn browsers into buyers.
With so much of the success of your SEO campaign hinging on user satisfaction, it only makes sense to focus on creating user-centered SEO strategies. With these, you can:
- Earn high-value traffic on your website
- Create content that’s highly relevant to users
- Earn citations, backlinks, and social shares from high-value websites and industry professionals
- Increase traffic quantity and quality, conversions, user satisfaction, and ROI
What Makes SEO User-Centric?
Now that you know the benefits of user-centric SEO, it’s time to identify what makes SEO strategies user-centric. This starts by understanding how users are accessing your website. Generally, it depends on three conditions: users’ devices, internet connection, and browsing journey.
Optimizing based on users’ devices
One of the keys to ensuring that all users have a positive experience on your website is to optimize it for most devices. This means your content must be equally easy to access on mobile and desktop browsers.
Your website must also have a baseline level of performance that works for the devices you’re optimizing for. Progressive enhancement and graceful degradation web development strategies can be the answer to this.
Optimizing based on internet connection
Internet connection is one of the trickiest elements to tackle when optimizing users’ experience on your website. Internet connectivity tends to fluctuate, especially if used on mobile devices.
But it’s possible to optimize for different levels of connectivity and ensure that users have a good experience on your website, no matter the quality of their internet connection through Network Information API.
This indicates what type of connection a user has and provides an estimated bandwidth. With this information, you can choose to conditionally load images, videos, and fonts on your website and ensure that your website’s layout is retained on a limited connection.
Optimizing based on users journey
When a user is on a particular page, where are they most likely to click next? What pages do they need to go to after seeing the information on the page they’re currently on? Answering these questions will help you prioritize the resources users need based on their browsing behavior.
This method of optimizing based on what users need rather than optimizing every page they could potentially land on is a great example of user-centric SEO.
How to Create a User-Centric SEO Strategy
User-focused SEO strategies have many facets, but their foundation is built on having these three components:
Know the persona
Any marketing strategy starts with a strong understanding of your audience and target market. User-centric SEO is no different. When you know who they are and what they like, you can predict their behavior more easily.
The personas of your audience have different goals and different conversion paths that will inform you of the best keywords and content to include on the site. Develop your personas in the planning stages of your SEO strategy, and you can target your customers’ needs.
Conduct keyword research
Google no longer emphasizes keyword matching when presenting search results to users. Instead, it focuses on user intent or what it thinks the user is looking for. As such, it’s important to conduct keyword research and optimize your content for semantic search so your pages stay relevant.
With keyword research, you’ll understand the types of keywords and phrases being used to find your products or services online. To do this, you have to consider:
- User intent
- Potential to convert
- Search volume
Once you have these things in mind, it’s easier to create website content that responds to semantic search. Your content will have context, variations of keywords, and be written in your audience’s natural language that makes it easier to understand.
Carry out competitor analysis
If your competitors are doing well, they must be doing something right. Understanding what these are can give you an insight into what you can improve on. This is also an efficient way to research your own market and apply what you’ve learned to your SEO efforts.
Competitor analysis in SEO involves identifying your true competitors, conducting a page analysis to know which of their pages are performing well, and using that knowledge to mine keywords with high ROI to use for your own strategy.
User-Centric SEO and Its Long-Term Value
SEO as a whole is a type of marketing strategy that demands long-term commitment and provides long-term results. As such, it allows you to create long-term plans that target end-users.
When you create SEO strategies with users in mind, you’re keeping them involved from the get-go, allowing you to align your plans.
And when you answer their needs successfully through user-centric SEO, you can build trust, which leads to your audience forming a long-term relationship with your brand.
Plan for the Long-Term with a Reliable Digital Marketing Agency
Tonic Enterprise is a full-service digital marketing company based in Lake Mary, Florida, and caters to businesses locally and in Orlando. Our expert digital marketing team can help you develop a user-focused SEO strategy for your business so you can reap its long-term benefits.
Schedule a consultation today.