How to map keywords to the buyer journey in SEO?

Understanding the buyer's journey is a necessity of effective marketing strategy. This article from Search Engine Land, talks about the process for mapping keywords to the buyer journey in SEO.

Two steps are generalized from what the author, Janet Driscoll Miller, says.

First, find the right keywords.

Before you start finding keywords, you should know what your current customers look like, i.e. you should build personas based on both demographics and psychographic information you collect. Janet suggests two ways for collecting information:

• Collect the data that is directly available in the customer record. For example, if you sell products online, you likely have your customers’ shipping addresses and ZIP codes.
• Try incorporating data from social media platforms. For example, if you sell business services, look at your customers’ LinkedIn profiles.

After you collect the information and build a consumer list, try uploading your customer list to Facebook’s Audience Insights tool.

Once you know more about your customers, try to think of the words to search from their perspective. Use tools like Keyword Tool Dominator to build a keyword list.

Second, map the keywords to the buying circle.

When developing keywords, consider the buyer’s journey. Take the example of running shoes, when someone just starts the journey, i.e., when he/she is in the awareness phase, queries might be broad, such as “running shoes for women.”

As the person moves through the journey, he/she may become aware of some brands and different options. Therefore, the queries become more specific, like “Asics vs. New Balance running shoes” or “long distance women’s running shoes.”

Finally, the customer would enter the purchase phrase when he/she is at the end of the journey and knows exactly what to buy. The query would then be as specific as something like “Asics women’s GT-1000 4 running shoes midnight.”

To attract and convert customers from all stages, Janet suggests that marketers have a combination of keywords from all stages of the buying cycle.

And…do not miss the opportunity to map your keywords to content!

Besides the discussion above, marketers should also align keywords planning to content strategy. When you write a blog post about something, for instance, about shoes that are suitable for hiking, be sure to include the relevant keyword because the readers may search it.