Today is the anniversary version – let’s talk anniversaries – specifically Google’s 20th.
Hello, thanks for listening to SEO tips today.
Today’s my wedding anniversary and (don’t worry, we are off doing something fun – as best we can with two small children) but I thought I would talk about anniversaries today. Specifically, Google’s 20th anniversary (2 years ago) where they announced the topic layer and how they can understand the searcher’s journey.
Hopefully, since it was two years ago you’ve integrated the idea of creating content for the different stages of the searcher’s journey as well as optimizing for topics into your SEO planning, but if not I’m going to talk through a few ideas here.
First of all, if Google knows that much about your target audience, perhaps you should set up a survey or focus group to talk to your target audience too? And ask them questions about how they find the information you provide?
Even more effective (I think) is being able to run a search focus group – where you use a tool like UserTesting (though it’s pricey) and give your audience a scenario. Have them start from Google search and see how they articulate their search terms, select something in the search results, and then either stay on that result or revise their query. The best part is that they talk out loud as they are making those decisions and you are recording them… Watching searchers is truly eye-opening.
Even if you’re not conducting that type of research, if you use a keyword tool like SEMrush you can export the research with groupings. Often you can see patterns in that research that lines up nicely with the different customer journey phases: discovery, research, comparison, selection, and advocacy (or whatever stages make sense for your customers and industry).
You can also see the various topics and subtopics now in search results or by using Google Images or Pinterest – often those highlight different subtopics that you should address in your copy. Finally, you can use Wikipedia or People also ask to flush out your topic and ensure that you’re addressing your audience’s “next” question when you’re drafting a writing strategy.
Let’s look at an example.
For the term “preventive cardiology” if you go to Google image search you see the following subtopics:
- Hospital
- Cardiology clinic
- Heart attack
- Heart disease prevention
- ASCVD risk factors
- Statins
And a Google search displays the following PAA questions:
- What are the preventive measures of heart disease?
- What does a cardiologist do in a day?
- What is the difference between a cardiologist and an interventional cardiologist?
And this where I remind my listeners that SEO Minion helps you download a list of those People Also Ask questions…
You can also evaluate your competitors to see if they talk about the entities Google expects to see more than you do. In this instance, it’s Hopkins Medicine that has the Featured Snippet, and if you put that into Google’s Natural Language API tool, you can see terms like:
- cardiologists
- heart disease
- cardiology
- cardiology research
- Preventive Cardiology Genetics
- risk factors
- research
- peripheral vascular disease
- signs
- cerebrovascular disease risk
- stroke
- Education
And you should work those into your copy as well.
So that’s my tip for today. If you’re not already working on incorporating topics and entities in your copy you should along with thinking about how to address your audience’s questions along their searcher’s journey.
Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow for another SEO tip.
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