Want to Know What Your Clients Are Googling? ...Are You Sure?
To nobody’s surprise, I enjoy reading. I don’t get through books as quickly as I used to (mainly because I fall asleep by the time I get to the third paragraph) however, I had a pretty steady list of my top 5 favorite books of all time. Most of them are from my high school AP English class (yes, I was a nerd, and I don’t even care), and a few came from my graduate studies. Only one of them, however, is a business book (and a technical business book nonetheless) and I just came across it this past year: Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
His book sums up perfectly what I love about what I do: he takes the qualitative data of what people search combined with the quantitative data of how many people search it and develops big-picture analysis on what people are doing on the internet and how some of the biggest brands in the world have shifted business strategy because of it. This includes Netflix (remember when there wasn’t even a streaming option on the platform?), Facebook (People. Flipped. Out. when the news feed was launched… even though it made their online habits [namely, stalking] so much easier), and especially our ol’ friend Google. Because you can lie to your friends, family - even yourself - but you won’t lie to Google.
Beautiful, organized, content.
Seth’s research shows how people’s online behaviors don’t connect with what they’re telling people via email or social media and what they’re asking Google. For example, the higher the trend for posting consistently to social media and using phrases such as “best husband ever,” or “best wife ever,” the higher the trend for those same online profiles to ask Google phrases such as: “divorce attorney near me,” or “how do I know if my spouse is cheating.” This real, raw data puts a whole other spin on just “seeing the highlight reel” on social media.
My point is this: if you know what your ideal client is Googling, then you know how to best develop your content/service offering so these clients come across your business. And, bonus, you don’t have to be a data scientist to understand what they’re Googling or why.
There are a ton of helpful tools out there that can help make sense of the vast Google landscape specific for your business. I recently installed a plug-in that will rank SEO on any website (and tell you why it is ranked so high - or low) and a line map that shows what people are Googling for specific industries.
Do you think people are just going to Google “branding” and be done with it? Nope. That leads them to ask, “What is branding in simple words?” and “What are the disadvantages to branding?” And those more specific keywords are much better for your ranking than simply trying to fit the word “branding” five hundred times into your website.
In fact, I’ve printed off a few of these line maps and pinned them to my whiteboard. I have a list of topics and keywords that I plan to use for 2020, and I plan to use this tool for my clients as we plan out their content as well. If the people are asking for it, I’d be pretty bad at my job to not listen.
PS: What phrases do you think people are most likely to Google for your industry? Share with us!