So you have decided to jump into the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization,) you are jumping around from site to site and seeing everything from hacks to companies demanding a small fortune to optimize your site and somehow you ended up here. Some important things to understand as we get started. The most important thing to understand is that SEO takes time! You also need to be invested, and incredibly patient. A strong SEO strategy is like a garden that must be planted, watered, and nurtured before you can harvest. And lastly, SEO works! An effective SEO strategy has the power to transform your business!
To get things started off lets talk about what Search Engine Optimization actually is. Search Engine Optimization is optimizing your web presence so that search engines (like google, and bing) see your business and rank your digital property higher. Having high rankings means your site comes up first, and your competitors are pushed down making customers more likely to find you!
Today we are going to focus on the first step in optimizing your SEO strategy, understanding your target audience.
As you have been crawling the web for informational tidbits about SEO you have no doubt come across several articles on the subject of determining you target audience demographic. This is because unless you know who you are marketing to, you are wasting time with every other step in this series. Having a strong understanding of your target audience will influence your content, marketing, blog posts and social media posts. Failure to capture your target audience means that you will spend all of your time broadcasting to the masses when you are only trying to reach the people interested in your product.
So you need a little help defining your target audience? Take a look at your customers and try to discover the following:
Finances – What is the average income of your customer base?
Education – What is the average level of education that your customer base has?
Employment – What do your customers do?
Living Situation – Is your product meant for singles or is it family oriented?
Personal Life – Is your customer base interested in a particular hobby or pastime?
Thoughts, feelings, and motivations – This is a little bit tougher to nail down, make sure and record these throughout your customer interactions, find out what makes your customers tick!
Once you get all that together its time for Step 2! Coming next week!