Target Audience Based SEO in E-Commerce
Why do we need user-centric and target audience-based SEO in today’s e-commerce world?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) often finds itself straddling multiple domains. Optimizing a website for search engines involves several key areas: content, technical aspects, outreach, public relations (PR), and even Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) when necessary.
Given this context, there is considerable debate today about whether SEO should fall under marketing. SEO contributes significantly to Growth Marketing in various areas, while also being responsible for behind-the-scenes adjustments. So, where exactly do we position ourselves?
In my opinion, SEO has always been a marketing tool, albeit with a much greater technical orientation than many other digital marketing disciplines. This technical expertise can provide SEO consultants with significant advantages in many areas.
Today, I will discuss target audience-based SEO and the role of an SEO consultant within the traditional marketing funnel.
Is SEO Just About Driving Traffic?
First and foremost, this question needs to be addressed. Many consultants would answer affirmatively. They might deploy every method to drive organic traffic to a site and succeed in many of these methods.
However, I do not believe that driving traffic is the sole purpose of SEO in the context of marketing, at least not today.
One can encounter numerous impressive SEO case studies today. However, if a case study is about increasing traffic, its fundamental value lies in quality traffic.
Unless you are engaging in guerrilla marketing, you would not share recipes on a Fintech startup's blog merely because they have high search volumes, right?
For an e-commerce site, unqualified traffic equates to unwanted potential visitors.
The Place of SEO in the Traditional Marketing Funnel
The traditional marketing funnel typically follows the AIDA model (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action).
Where does an SEO consultant’s work start and end?
In the funnel above, the SEO expert’s position depends mostly on the business's strategy. Personally, I believe in contributing to every part of this funnel.
SEO consultants usually focus on Awareness, the top of the funnel, but being present in every part of the funnel is crucial for a comprehensive digital strategy.
This begins with the right traffic and the right visitors. As with any digital marketing professional, you first need to identify the target audience and shape your strategy accordingly.
Quality vs. Quantity in Visitors
To further clarify this, let’s expand on the Fintech Startup example with another one.
Suppose you have a website that exclusively sells books for preparing for foreign language exams. If you want to produce weekly content based on your content marketing calendar, which of the following topics would you choose?:
General summaries of world classics (2 per week)
Tips on IELTS and TOEFL questions (2 per week)
Undoubtedly, both topics can contribute to Awareness; however, which one will bring your potential customers one step closer to your website?
A website selling books for foreign language exam preparation targets an audience researching foreign language exams. Therefore, if you want to design a strategy centered on capturing potential customers, blog posts offering tips on IELTS and TOEFL questions are undoubtedly a better approach.
User Interactions & User-Centric Organic Marketing
Why quality traffic?
If you only want to create awareness, quality may not be necessary. Quantity might be much more important for you. However, when discussing a 360-degree SEO & Digital Growth strategy, quality should be one of your biggest assets.
We know Google uses hundreds of ranking algorithms, and leaked API codes and lawsuits have shown that it also tracks user interactions, which I consider one of the most important factors.
Think about the scenario above and let’s shape a user survey together.
Our potential customer comes to our blog series on "Tips for IELTS Questions."
They make a book selection through our blog's CTAs, banners or internal links.
They add the book to their cart, sign up on the site, and complete their order.
In short, they complete the necessary survey on an e-commerce site.
In the opposite scenario, they read the related book summary and exit the site.
Which scenario is more positive for SEO?
Entity Enrichment with Outreach & Backlink: But how?
Organic backlink acquisition, PR advertising, and outreach are essential factors for SEO, despite some claims that they aren’t. But what kind of backlink strategy contributes to our website's growth and organic visitor acquisition?
The answer lies in entity enrichment. For Google, every page and query is an entity, and the process we call entity enrichment in SEO involves backlink acquisition. Backlink acquisition should semantically match our website’s sector and potential websites that our target audience might visit.
Otherwise, backlinks acquired or bought just for high domain authority will only provide a temporary boost. Therefore, all backlink and outreach efforts should be conducted based on a target audience strategy.
Data & Insights for Target Audience-Based SEO
To work on target audience-based SEO, you first need to correctly establish your strategy and target audience. However, our resources for SEO are limited. So, how can we use these limited resources and more?
Google Analytics: It provides a demographic data set, albeit a sample one. This data set is mostly insufficient but is quite suitable for making a start. For example, you can obtain age breakdowns, gender breakdowns, and more from Google Analytics data and use them to shape your strategy.
Benchmarks: In my opinion, sectoral benchmarks are one of the most important tools you can use when creating a target audience. Researching the audience these benchmarks can reach and how they do so will help you take a step in determining your own target audience.
Journey-Based Events: Journey-based events, offered by Google Analytics and more advanced third-party tools, allow you to see a user's footprints. By conducting analyses in this context, you can identify an error or improvement points in the journey and quickly achieve a flawless customer experience.
Cross Marketing Channels: SEO undoubtedly has limited resources for determining the target audience. However, paid marketing teams aiming for the same target audience know a lot about them. Therefore, as an SEO consultant, you need to be able to work together with cross teams on targets and run towards the same goal with different interpretations of the same data.
Your Experiences: The channels mentioned above can help you create a strategy and reach the right audience; however, it is crucial to interpret all the data correctly. This is where your past experiences and industry knowledge come into play. Therefore, you must be well-versed in a particular industry before embarking on digital marketing efforts within that sector.
Final Words
In the context of growth marketing, SEO is one of the hardest areas to measure while also being able to influence many channels with its complex structure. In this context, in a business structured with a 360-degree marketing strategy, SEO goals cannot be separate from the marketing department.
For a fully-fledged marketing strategy, quality traffic is paramount and continues to be an inevitable reality in today’s e-commerce world.
Anyone can drive traffic to a website; the important thing is to provide traffic that impacts the business's KPIs and ensure that potential customers complete their journey as smoothly as possible.
The core of growth marketing lies here, and as an SEO expert, thinking about customer satisfaction independently of the growth strategy is like a ship without a compass going wherever the wind takes it.