Who Are Your Ideal SEO Target Audience?
Something many, if not most, businesses forget on a regular basis is to focus on the customer. Your target audience is out there searching for what you have to offer. How are they searching? What language are they searching in? What should you remember about these customers that you may not think about always?
If your customer is from certain regions of the US, they will use “pop” instead of “soda” or “dinner” over “supper.” If you’re a restaurant in a “supper” area but you steadfastly and stubbornly stick to “dinner menu” you are losing a lot of traffic. About 90 million out of 750 million searches for the evening meal say “supper” and the rest say “dinner.” If you never use the word supper on your site in a region that does, you could potentially lose many customers. Similarly, in New Zealand, some parts of Australia and the UK “tea” refers to the evening meal. Also, beware of spelling across borders. When doing international business, keep in mind that having a color selector on your site is going to do you very little good in places where your customers search for a colour palette tool.
Demographic studies of your customer should include more than thinking about the last five people to walk into your store and thinking “how are they the same?” Think about demographics like “big business” does. Who are your customers, really? If you are a gardener, where are your target customers? How old are they (ie. are they too busy because they work all week or are they elderly and can’t garden anymore?) Are most of the people who hire you male or female? Familes or no? This information can help you target content. If your average customer lives in Western Town and are professionals aged 30-45 with a couple of kids, you can write blog content about saving time & money with a professional gardener. You can write content about safe yards for children or keeping the wrong pesticides out of kid & pet reach and how hiring a professional means those chemicals are not stored at the home. Again, who are you optimizing for?
Maybe you run a clothing store for women. You want to target high-end clientèle but you realize soon after opening that nearly ninety percent of your foot traffic walks in, looks at a tag or two and walks out. Do you have a problem? You may need to bring in the clients yourself through your digital marketing strategy. How can you increase online word of mouth? You know not to bother targeting your local neighborhood so target the affluent nearby towns. You can’t win “clothing” so you need focus. What focus can you bring through understanding your demographics?
Who Are You Optimizing For? You? Google? Your Clients?
Your website needs to focus on the customer. Who are they? How old are they? Younger people will search different from the older generation. Search engines do not work like card catalogs. Younger people are more likely to search specifically first. “Pizza 90210″ is specific. Your elder clients may not search that way and may use full sentences such as “find a pizza parlor in beverly hills.” How you optimize your site (or optimise if you’re in Britain, Australia, etc.) will determine who finds your website and who you leave out.
You should know as much about your clients as possible. Demographics can include age, sex/gender, race, home ownership, employment status, current location, marital status, whether they have children, etc.
A new parent may search “where to buy diapers at 11pm” where the mom-of-5 already knows that. She is more interested in “bulk diapers online” because she knows how many she needs, she knows they don’t get cheaper and she knows she just had twins. You don’t know that so you need to figure out who your clients already are or who you want them to be. Market to the people who will pay for your services.
Focus on your end-buyer and remember to continue optimizing for your (SEO based) target audience.
