10 Commandments - Personas for SEO aka Customer-Driven Website Redesign

Editor's Notes

• #2: Will cover a process consultants can use to get corporate participation or in-house SEOs can use when redesigning
• #4: Featured on "Grey's Anatomy“ Our #1 need is to be loved. Something powerful happens when people are loved and cared for. But, you say your company needs to worry about their bottom line, not making everyone feel good. Well, guess what! Your customers are going to go to someone else who will make them feel loved.
• #5: The future of marketing is about being human, because humans don't remember the pitch, they remember the experience. We've got to stop thinking like marketers and start acting like humans to delight our prospects and customers at every touch point when we design our sites and our content. Let's put on our human hats and create an experience worth writing home about or earning links.
• #6: Personas development is about understanding human nature and developing groups of profiles with common characteristics and goals and needs for your products and services.
• #7: Anyone approaching web content strategy does so from a multitude of different backgrounds: writing, developing, designing, and marketing to name but a few. All have taken up the challenge because they care about content on the web and the vital role it plays in delivering a great user experience. By applying these diverse skills and experiences web content strategists are able to make a wide-ranging impact on a web team or project. Richard Ingram’s blog - UK
• #8: Personas are descriptions of people. People are THE core of redesigning your website. Content needs to be written & optimized for them. Help identify:What does person want to do?What keyword phrases are associated with their need? What questions are they asking? What content assets do we have to help?What do we want him/her to do? Why will he/she do it?What are the success metrics that lead to conversion?
• #11: People = employees, consultants, agencies, strategic partners Misalignment of interests & goals.
• #12: Many C-suiters think it’s just jargon! NOT!
• #13: Do they REALLY know primary & secondary audiences? Corporate often has a surface understanding and only knows the audience at face value.
• #14: Get the C-Suite involved – internal surveys.
• #16: Get the C-Suite involved – internal surveys. Clicktools (integrates with Salesforce)
• #17: You need multiple perspectives and insights to help create a user-friendly site that delivers what they need. It needs to include the C-Suite.
• #18: Select a cross section of clients, employees, media for surveys - via website, email, phone.
• #19: 1) look and layout of the current site 2) ease of navigation 3) ability to find the information 4) overall content
• #20: What information do you need most from our website – internally & externally. How can the website address their questions and concerns? How can we compel them to buy, complete a contact form, or call us?
• #21: Select a cross section of clients, employees, media for surveys.
• #24: Clicktools: Integrates with Salesforce – high-end, paid Survey Monkey: On-site or email surveys, free Instantly (formerly Survey Builder): Free survey builder for web & mobile insights – instant feedback
• #25: SEOmoz Search SPAM game at PubCon 2009
• #26: …and give them a name and face
• #27: Don’t do this!
• #28: Your audience will consume your content  based off how they are wired. The 4 personality types summarize their content consumption habits:
• #29: C-Suite, Product Managers, Managers, Sales, Customer Service Reps Get supplies
• #30: Can be super simple, nothing fancy. Tasks on sticky notes – Vanessa Fox. Focus on who they are and the tasks they need to do!
• #31: Tasks & Keywords
• #32: Surveys, demographic and psychographic research will help finalize input about the design and content and help finalize two types of personas: design (people who use the site) and search personas (those looking for information via search engines). The goal is to identify their needs or problems and obstacles and how the website fits into that.
• #33: You end up with personas - Who, what they need to do, tasks. Compliments
• #34: Identify who they are and
• #35: MozCon 2012 marketers can capture social data to associate with known-users’ profiles. 
• #36: Facebook Exchange lets advertisers reach users based on their browsing history elsewhere on the Web.  Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, says the move raises privacy concerns. "Facebook's ad exchange is a powerful targeting system that melds its own storehouse of user information with data from other data brokers. Google has now joined that private club. With Google and Facebook pooling their vast data profiles, and access to our mobile phones, consumers will have no place to hide," Chester said.
• #37: Facebook, Analytics, AdWords, Email Lists – demographic & psychographic
• #38: Paid tool with competitive insights and audience demographics
• #39: SEPTEMBER 25, 2013Who’s not online and why15% of American adults do not use the internet at all, and another 9% of adults use theinternet but not at home 
• #41: SEPTEMBER 25, 2013Who’s not online and why15% of American adults do not use the internet at all, and another 9% of adults use theinternet but not at home  http://bit.ly/1c5XtNs
• #42: Addressed GA as part of demographic research earlier. Use analytics & webmaster tools to know how people are using your site. Get the Visitors Overview report from an unfiltered profile. Look at new & returning visitors.
• #43: Addressed GA as part of demographic research earlier. Use analytics & webmaster tools to know how people are using your site. Get the Visitors Overview report from an unfiltered profile. Look at new & returning visitors.
• #44: There are many ways to measure the effectiveness of organic search engine marketing. We’d like to explore various techniques in a series of posts here on the Analytics blog. Today we’ll talk about understanding organic using landing pages and Webmaster Tools data.  Today, almost all marketers are investing heavily in creating high-quality content as a way to reach users with information about their products and services. The content can take many forms - from product specific content to brand specific content. The intent is to generate traffic and conversions from a variety of sources, one of the largest of which is often search. One way to measure the effectiveness of content is to analyze its performance as a landing page. A landing page is the first page a user sees when they land on your site. If it’s great content, and if it’s ranked highly by search engines like Google, then you should see a lot of websites ‘entrances’ via that page. Looking at landing page performance, and the traffic that flows through specific landing pages, is a great way to analyze your search engine optimization efforts. Begin by downloading this custom report (this link will take you to your Analytics account). This report shows the landing pages that receive traffic from Google organic search and how well the traffic performs. 
• #45: Digital product website. Soccer Mom, Techie Dad, Retiree backup: another soccer Mom $75 Visa or Am Ex gift card
• #46: Digital product website. Follow basic structure pretty closely. Define personas and get as close as possible. Found them via Facebook. Twitter doesn't seem to be working as well to bring people in. Tough to find people for heart surgery. Put flyers in doctors offices. Facebook & Craig's List - weight loss vitamins, wanted young people 18-34.
• #47: Search is about needs, and the standard keyword classifier are not enough to understand a searcher’s intent. Reason for need for personas. These types of keywords are important, however, to understand what they are looking for when on a page. What terms would they use in various stages of the buying cycle? Early Stage Buyer: They made decision they want, have need, or don’t know exactly what they need. They need as much information regarding choices and options possible to feel comfortable. Middle Stage Buyer: Prepared to buy but not certain which product/services. They need options and information to progressively narrow choice. Late Stage Buyer: Knows exactly what will satisfy need. They’re searching for specifics - want to compare brands, companies, manufacturers to ensure they are worth their money/investment.
• #50: LOVE the new keyword planner. This is not a talk on how to do keyword research… Google Trends, Google Suggest – Ubersuggest, Topsy, SEOBook Topsy’s also a good tool to monitor the chatter about your site, your social movement. Moz Keyword Difficulty Tool (PAID) to download – good for knowing the SERPs! Which is where you want to spend much of your time. Bing - All query volumes and keyword suggestions are based on organic search, not on paid search.
• #51: Google’s suggestions show popular searches (personalized searches, too). Terms that suddenly spike in popularity in the short term can appear, even if they haven’t gained long-term popularity.
• #52: You can also get Top Users & export to CSV.
• #53: It's not about keywords. It's about audience. Create content that's: 1. Compelling 2. Educational 3. Both KW research is still important, because you need to understand what they are searching on.
• #54: Download free worksheets and slides
• #55: Too much we this, we that. Stop talking about yourself! Your personas (prospects & customers) are tuned into WIIFM – what’s in it for me.
• #56: There is a famine in the land of website content due to all the self portraits.
• #57: NO meta description
• #58: Over 1 Billion
• #59: Problem with most marketing is it attempts to speak to all potential buyers with the same content in the same language. Need: learn more about your audience to shape messaging.
• #60: Messaging should include…
• #61: Key features
• #62: Trust factors that lead to conversion
• #63: Internal worksheets & questionnaires Who, What, Where, Why, How Identify your redesign goals and conversion events.
• #64: Can be super simple, nothing fancy. Tasks on sticky notes – Vanessa Fox.
• #67: Social proof increases how prospects feel about you, they build brand signals. Join the 300,000 members who contribute to our vibrant community and learn from industry experts in our Q&A forum.
• #68: If other people are liking it and sharing about Southwest, then they will like it and share about it, too
• #69: Follow those same principles of thinking about your audience across your social media properties
• #70: Now that you know who they are, ensure the team understands the customer is 1st!
• #71: Jonathon’s presentation at MozCon 2013 – Whiteboard Friday
• #72: Example of true persona “understanding”
• #73: You’ll build fans and followers and a community around your new site!
• #74: SouthWest wins the love award!!
• #75: Process - Map audience & their goals, position in the buying cycle with keywords and messaging. Identify what content assets you have and what aspects of your site match or where there is a gap. Optimize or create new content with your benefit to this persona and your solution to meet their needs. You can now publish your content in the best channels to reach them with content they will find and consume.