Integrate with UX to create content for real people

Sanja says: “Integrate SEO and UX to build content strategies for real people.”

Is it not necessary to think about algorithms or bots crawling your site?

“Technical SEO is, of course, an essential aspect.

However, especially nowadays, with all this noise about AI, we're forgetting that content is still king, and we still need to create content for real people and not search engines.

Creating content for real people is the baseline for building your authority on the internet. If you create content that is only focussed on search engines, who is going to read it? Who is going to share it?

You need to focus on understanding what users need in order to create content for real people that people will actually read, like, engage with, and share. That is the basics for building authority nowadays.”

Is it possible to create content for both humans and bots at the same time?

“I think so. In general, there are certain rules that you need to stick to on the SEO side. On the other hand, you also need to really provide content that a real human will really read.

If you don't do that, your content will not perform well because, in the end, search engines and AI agents also learn based on user experience. If no one is reading your content, you are not going to be there.”

What does people-first content look like?

“I will give you an example.

If I'm searching for information about a conspiracy theory, because I want to read more about that theory and understand what happened a bit better, people-first content would not start with the heading tag, ‘What is a conspiracy theory?’

Instead, it would start by giving real information about what happened. It would not be oriented entirely on SEO; it would provide the information that I am actually interested in.”

Is this a negative for targeting keyword phrases, thereby giving you fewer opportunities to rank in search engines?

“I don't think so, because we are moving away from entirely focussing on keywords when it comes to SEO.

I'm not saying that we should completely neglect all SEO practices; I'm just saying that there are some aspects of UX that we can use to complement the information and research that we do with SEO. I'm an SEO specialist, so I would never say that we should just forget about all of these SEO practices that we've been following throughout the years.

Nowadays, especially with chatbots and how search is becoming more conversational, we also need to evolve and include some extra research, in addition to what we already do as SEOs, so that we can create content for real people.”

How can SEO and UX work together to build smarter content strategies?

“With SEO, we get an insight into search patterns, we identify keywords, we analyse search intent, we analyse the SERP, and we analyse the competitors to get the data to create content strategies.

On the other hand, we are missing insights from real users, which is where UX research can help. UX research dives into user behaviour, and it can explain why users behave the way they do. What are their frustrations? What are their motivations?

This kind of information can complement the data that you have from your SEO analysis in order to create a more informed content strategy.”

Should SEO teams and UX teams ideally sit down once a quarter to refine and determine what the next three months' content strategy should be?

“Yes. In general, SEO teams should not work in a vacuum, and they should be integrated with the UX team – if there is one.

I understand that this is not an ideal world where everyone has the budget for everything. Ideally, if there is a UX team, the SEO team should work with them to get the data from their research on the users, so that they can identify the key user personas they need to address with the content they will be creating. With that data, you can identify what your users are interested in, what drives their behaviour online, and what frustrations and motivations they have that you can address through your content.

In an ideal world, they should sit together, but when it is not possible for SEOs to work with UX teams, there are other ways that you can conduct research. You can run polls or surveys. You can use the data that you find in online forums or places like Reddit that are related to your niche to get some information on what users are asking for and what language they use when they talk about topics related to your niche.

This is not just about understanding what the real user needs are, but also to better grasp the terminology they use when they talk about your products, services, or topics related to your niche.

As search is becoming more conversational, you need to expand keyword research into understanding vocabulary, how users express themselves, and what questions they're asking when they're talking about subjects related to your industry.”

You say that SEO reveals what and how people search, and UX answers why people behave the way they do, so how do you use that UX to enhance your content?

“Let’s say that you were going to create a product page. You have the product name and the keyword, and you know that you need to include X keyword in the page title, in the meta description, and in the heading tags.

On the other hand, if you do the UX research with users, they might tell you that they really appreciate transparency, and they like the process of browsing online products to feel like a real-life experience. They might appreciate having detailed information on the fabric, on how to take care of the fabric, on the delivery, and on the cost.

Then, you can include all of this data and create a template to follow, keeping in mind everything that the users have said to offer them all the information they need to see on your landing page, so that they can have this real-life experience.

For example, they might appreciate it if the clothing pieces were worn by people who more closely resemble them, because then they could have a better impression of how it would suit them. That is something you could incorporate.

Basically, you can include this user-oriented information, combine it with your SEO practices, blend it all together, and then track the progress.”

What tools do you use to conduct online forums analysis in order to get a better understanding of your audience?

“I personally use AI for this kind of analysis. You can use AI to assess comments regarding certain topics or questions people are asking around certain topics on niche forums or Reddit.

There are also other tools that you can use, such as AnswerThePublic and AlsoAsked. They provide information around the conversations and long tail questions that users ask online.

Apart from those two tools, I have been using ChatGPT and Perplexity to scrape data from specific subreddits and forums that are related to our niche to get an overview of what our users are asking there.

How you carry out that analysis will depend on what you want to find out. First, I would ask for an overview. For example, that could be an overview of the main concerns for users in Spain when they talk about acquiring a driver's license in Spain. Then, I would ask it to give me additional examples of users and specific comments so that I can manually review those as well.

By doing that, you can identify the main topics that you can extract from those users' questions and frustrations. From there, you look at the comments and extract what you can cover in your content to address these.”

Sanja, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“Understanding users' needs, motivations, and frustrations – what makes them feel sad, happy, or have fun – is crucial for creating valuable content.

This is where SEO should experiment and work together with UX to create content for real people.”

Sanja Markovic is a Senior SEO Specialist. Find out more over at Seorita.com.