Writing for Search Engines: Optimizing for Users

By Michael Toner, Web Content Manager, CSC

Search permeates all things that have content. When I think about search engine optimization (SEO), I immediately think about customers typing a search phrase into Google. What they are typing? What are they searching for? How do they refer to the product or service? How many variations of the keyword phrase are there?

Several methods and tools can be used to identify this information, but it all boils down to keywords, which are the foundation of the content we create as digital marketers. Search permeates headlines and articles on csc.com, CSC World, display ads, social conversations and hashtags, videos and everything else we publish online.

If we are consistent and tight in our keyword choices, the subsequent framing and saturation and consistency across all online channels allow us to provide unique, quality content to a target audience.

Keywords represent connections to our customers, which means we must be aware of the language we use as well as the language used by our customers. By identifying search terms, we are simultaneously identifying our audience, as well as opportunities for conversations and content creation.

Once you can identify the keyword brainstorming process performed subconsciously by the customer, everything else becomes easier. Social media messages can become more exact in their wording, articles and white papers can become more focused in their headlines. Video titles can become a better match and can be easier for viewers to find.

If search is the foundation of all of this content, what role does the content itself play?

We aren’t just looking at SEO metrics in a search context, but we are looking at social and content metrics as well. If a visitor searches and finds csc.com, and then enjoys and shares that content on social media channels, the search engines are going to recognize that, and our search rankings for related keywords will improve as well.

As is widely agreed, in today’s buying cycle the buyer begins the buying process long before a salesperson contacts a prospect. Content allows buyers to educate themselves at their own pace. In which case, the marketers — not the salespeople — are responsible for educating the customer, driving interest and providing information during the buying process.

Content is the educational process that customers have chosen, and search is the medium through which buyers like to find information — a perfect match.

What makes SEO such an important tool for businesses to attract new customers?

Search is one of those things that is measurable, and in marketing, we are what we measure.

I believe SEO is maturing past keyword ranking trends and only measuring the Web traffic from search. We are moving toward more sophisticated measures of “SEO performance”: metrics such as the number of qualified leads or sales attributable to organic search, or even better, revenue attributed directly to an inbound search term.

If we look into the future, this search function of driving traffic and leads and sharing is no longer called SEO, but rather, it’s a combination of many things that happen to exist in the digital ecosystem. Quality content, user experience, content curating, social sharing — they all make up whatever this new optimization thing is. To me, the SEO of the future more closely resembles how we communicate and share as humans, without the search robots.

I love this quote from, The Inconvenient Truth About SEO: “Remember, you shouldn’t be optimizing for ranking in search engines, you should be optimizing for users.” I truly believe that SEO should concentrate on making your website both search engine-friendly and user-friendly. You can’t just focus on the keywords, or the content, but rather, you have to create an all-encompassing ecosystem of content, design and delivery channels that truly enables and encourages the buyer to act.

CSC is creating a digital marketing ecosystem on a solid content marketing foundation that integrates search, social, Web marketing, email marketing and community building as the core elements of our online presence.