People search Google for things they wouldn’t ask their friends. And they search for things they would. They’re doing it in the moment, and it’s free, and it gives us insights into our consumer’s lives.
Answer the Public was produced by Propeller Net in answer to the tediousness of having to trawl through Google – and they wanted to make keyword research prettier.
Sophie suggests that we should use Answer the Public to help us better understand our audience. Keyword research, yes, but also insights into how people identify themselves. For example, use ATP to look at “skiers are” vs “boarders are” and look at what comes up – this tribal association with each snow sport is an important part of who these people are, and creating content around this can be very powerful.
Another area you can use is the ‘like’ branch to identify influencers, e.g. put in ‘coats’ and you’ll get ‘coats like Kim Kardashian’ etc. Think not just about keywords, but what your PR team could do with this, what your product team can do with this.
Sophie suggests that as SEOs we are gatekeepers to a huge amount of information and we should share it beyond our own teams.
Three tools to use
- Audience view by Hitwise – audience understanding
- Brandwatch – insight into what your audience is shouting about on social
- What Users Do – get commentary on UX
