11 Reasons Why Your Audience Trumps Keywords When It Comes to SEO

Keywords has been a buzzword in the world of online marketing for quite a while, and it will certainly continue to be so for many years to come. This is because keywords are an important aspect of your marketing strategy, since they are responsible for capturing the attention of your target audience and engaging them in your brand.

Not only do the keywords you implement into your content help attract the right kind of audience, they also tell search engines what your website is about, helping them estimate whether it’s a relevant source of information, thereby determining its ranking.

However, your audience is significantly more important than keywords when it comes to SEO. Think about it. How would you know which keywords you should target if you have no idea who your target audience is? Do you know what terms they are typing into search engines when looking for something you offer? You need to know who they are so you can implement keywords they are already using.

This is where a lot of online marketers make a mistake, as they believe that certain keywords related to their business are enough, perhaps even more than enough, to enable them to drive more traffic to their websites and improve their SEO rankings. What they don’t realize is the fact that stuffing their websites with keywords, without actually conducting proper keyword research, does not do their rankings any good.

As a matter of fact, keyword stuffing can hurt SEO rankings, and climbing back up can be pretty tough. Therefore, you need to start with your target audience before you go into keywords; only when you have a defined audience will you be able to cater to them and use keywords effectively.

Without further ado, take a look at all the reasons your audience will always trump keywords when it comes to SEO.

Knowing Your Audience Leads to Knowing Your Keywords

There is a lot of content online, so standing out and cutting through the noise of competition can be pretty challenging. Implementing proper keywords into your content will help you reach out to your target audience and let them know about the products or services that you offer.

However, as already mentioned, you need to know your target audience in order to know which keywords to target. You need to understand their needs and preferences regarding your business so you can understand how to get their attention.

Therefore, make sure you conduct proper keyword research and find out the exact terms your target customers are typing into search engines. Implementing those terms into your content will drive more people to your website and help you grow your business.

If you instead try to target everyone by making your content generic, without the right keywords, you won’t achieve your goals. Targeting everyone means targeting no one, because you’re not making your content engaging and compelling if you’re not targeting a specific audience’s needs.

Higher Engagement Is Better Than Higher Traffic

The traffic you receive from your SEO keywords is valuable only if it is the right kind of traffic. You may get a surge in traffic by implementing certain keywords related to your business, but that doesn’t mean that that kind of traffic will actually help your business grow.

You need to make sure that the visitors who come to check out your website are actually engaged in your content and want to not only stay longer and find out more about what you have to say or sell, but also come back again. If you manage to truly engage your target audience, it will bring you a lot more benefits than merely adding SEO keywords ever could.

How can you know whether or not your website visitors are engaged in your brand? If they are leaving comments under your blog posts, sharing your content on their social media accounts or purchasing something from you, then they are genuinely interested in your business. They are engaged.

On the other hand, if all you get are just page views, then your audience is not actually finding your website relevant to their needs. This is precisely why focusing on your audience is much more vital than focusing only on keywords, because keywords are those that increase page views – they cannot engage people in your brand.

Clearly Defined and Engaged Audience Is Loyal

If you clearly define your target audience, you will know exactly what direction to take in order to grab their attention and engage them in your brand. When you truly engage your audience, you build trust with them and they become loyal to your brand eventually.

You cannot achieve this by merely adding particular SEO keywords into your content. Those keywords may drive more traffic to your website, but they may result in your visitors realizing that they are not really interested in what you have to offer once they land on your site. They will simply leave and find some other source of needed information that will resonate with their specific needs.

All of this means that your audience becomes loyal when you clearly define who they are first and then really engage them in what you do. If you don’t focus on your specific audience and their unique needs, you cannot turn them into loyal customers, and there is not a single keyword in the world that can help you achieve that before knowing and understanding your target customers first.

Engaged and Loyal Audience Increases Your Sales

You cannot build a large audience by simply stuffing keywords on your website. You build a large audience by engaging with them and building trust with them. When they become familiar with your brand and you provide them with excellent experiences every single time they interact with you, they will become your loyal customers. Therefore, your sales will be increased and you will generate a high ROI.

This cannot be told for keywords, though. Keywords only attract new people who may not be as likely to purchase your products or share your brand message as your loyal audience is. Your loyal audience will not only buy from you, but they will also visit your website on a regular basis to check out your new offers, whereas SEO traffic may not.

Therefore, you will improve your customer retention, which will significantly reduce your costs and make your business more profitable, helping you generate more ROI. On the other hand, keywords cannot produce the same ROI, nor can they help you build a loyal audience, let alone help you retain that audience.

Implementing Keywords without a Defined Audience Hurts Your Rankings

If you implement keywords that do not actually target your defined audience, then the smartest action you can take would definitely be to stop using keywords altogether. Why? Because, believe it or not, you are actually hurting your SEO ranking. You are making people bounce back and go to your competitors. You are ruining your reputation and brand image, which can be pretty tough to restore.

How are you doing all of that? When you use keywords that do not target your specific audience, people who come to your website by typing those keywords in search engines may realize that your website does not really provide them with the answers that they were looking for. Hence, they will click back and visit some other source from the search engine results page.

When they click back, your bounce rate increases and the Domain Authority of your website is hurt, eventually hurting your SEO ranking. If one or several people bounce back, your ratings cannot be seriously weakened, but if you continue to use irrelevant and incorrect keywords, you can expect a lot of people bouncing back. The result? Your ratings will be considerably harmed.

Your Audience Spreads the Word about Your Business

Yet another reason why audience always trumps keywords is the fact that your audience is much more likely to share your content and spread the word about your business than a random visitor whom Google directed to your site is. This is because SEO keywords usually attract people looking for a particular value without wanting to engage in your brand further.

On the other hand, your audience will always take the time to share your content, leave comments, and simply engage in your brand. This is simply because they are already familiar with your brand and find it important to share your brand message and communicate it to their family, friends, and followers on social media.

This is exactly what helps you extend your reach and increase the number of your loyal customers, because people highly rely on their friends’ opinions about brands. If your best friend tells you that a particular brand is absolutely brilliant, would you trust them? Of course you would.

Therefore, enable your audience to share your content and help you raise brand awareness. Add social media sharing buttons on your website and make them clearly visible and easy to use. Focus on engaging your quality traffic and, in return, your audience will engage with you and convey your ultimate brand message for you. They will become your brand ambassadors.

Retaining Customers Is More Cost-Effective Than Using SEO to Find New Ones

Trying to retain your customers generally costs considerably less than trying to gain new ones with the means of SEO. As a matter of fact, acquiring a new customer costs 5 times as much as retaining a customer.

Why is that exactly? It is because people generally love routine and habits. Once they get used to doing something or purchasing particular products, they usually stick to those habits. When they become loyal to particular brands, they tend to stay loyal.

This is why you should focus on nurturing your current customers, instead of trying too hard to attract new ones. It may sound weird and it doesn’t mean that you should not try and expand your audience, but nurturing those customers that are already loyal to you will eventually lead to you gaining a greater number of customers.

This is precisely because they will recommend you to the people they know and, in the business world, that means everything. There is really no better form of marketing than the marketing that your existing customers are doing for you. Not only is it free marketing, but it is also the most effective one.

Keyword Stuffing Hurts Your SEO Ranking

Keyword stuffing is something that no marketer should ever do, because it paints a picture of someone who doesn’t really know what they are doing. It shows that you are unprofessional and that you are downright desperate to make a sale.

When a visitor arrives at your website and sees that you have stuffed your content with the exact same keywords, they will not see you as an expert in your field. They will not see you as an authority, and your reputation and credibility will suffer grave consequences.

Moreover, your SEO ranking will be hurt, because your content will not create positive experiences, and user experience is one of the numerous Google’s ranking algorithms. Thus, when Google sees keyword stuffing on your site, it will decrease your SEO ranking, which will negatively affect your traffic.

Therefore, make sure you don’t go overboard with your keywords. Use them, but be smart about it. Rephrase them a bit, as that will vamp up your content and make it more interesting. Make sure that your content is of high quality and that it provides relevant information about your business, and only use keywords when they naturally fit the context. Otherwise, your audience will not trust your website and they will leave you for your competitors pretty quickly.

Defined Audiences Lead to Lower Bounce Rates

If you clearly define your audience, you will be able to significantly reduce your bounce rate. This is because your target audience will be genuinely interested in everything that you have to say or offer, so they will not bounce back right after they visit your website. They will be compelled to stay longer and learn more about you, browse through your special offers or subscribe to your services.

This is quite logical, when you think about it. If you visit a website that features plenty of articles related to DIY tips and tricks, for instance, it is very likely that you will stay longer on the site and read more than one article. DIY is something that interests you and, since you are there, you will take the time to navigate through the website and delve deeper into the content that you find relevant to your particular needs.

This is not quite possible if you stuff your pages with keywords and completely ignore the needs of your target audience. Your content needs to resonate with your target audience, so defining it is absolutely vital. Only then will you be able to decrease your bounce rate, increase your conversions and improve your rankings.

Your Loyal Audience Stays Longer on Your Site Than Traffic Gained by SEO Keywords

When your audience is properly defined and when they are loyal, they will do much more than helping you reduce your bounce rate. Not only will they not click back and leave your website, but they will actually stay longer, thereby helping you increase your time on page.

The higher your time on page, the higher your SEO ranking will be. This is because time on page is one of Google’s ranking algorithms so, if yours is generally low, Google will determine that your site is not exactly relevant to your audience. It will recognize that your site does not really provide real value to them, so it will stop directing people to it.

On the other hand, if your website visitors stay longer on your site, Google will determine that you do provide something relevant and useful. It will assume that your content is of high quality and that it essentially engages people. Otherwise, it will assume that they don’t exactly like what they see when they arrive at your site.

Therefore, always put your audience’s needs first when crafting your content, because they will stick around much longer than the traffic gained only by SEO keywords. You will inspire their loyalty and strengthen your relationship with them, building a strong and reputable brand.

Your Audience Enables Effective Retargeting

Retargeting is one of the most important forms of online targeted advertising nowadays, since people are active on social media almost all the time. More importantly, they put their interests on their social media profiles, which makes it incredibly easier for you and every other marketer to target the right kind of audience that will help you grow your business.

Moreover, their likes, dislikes, comments and shares additionally provide you with an insight into their preferences and interests, so that you can target, that is, retarget them easier. You can learn much more about your ideal customers by gaining an insight into their previous actions on social media.

Therefore, you can run ads on the social media platform of your choosing (or more than platform), and that particular platform will help you attract people who are most likely to be engaged in your brand and purchase something from you.

Food for thought: the average click-through rate for retargeted ads is 10 times higher than the average click- through rate for display ads. Also, retargeting helps you increase the percentage of users who come back to complete a purchase, that is, complete the checkout process to 26%, which is an awesome benefit for ecommerce businesses.

Why is all of this important? Because with retargeting, you concentrate on your target audience, rather than focusing only on your keywords. Retargeting is not about keywords or keyword stuffing, but rather about finding the right kind of audience and catering to their specific needs. It is about clearly understanding who they are and what their pain points are, so that you can make sure that your paid advertising campaigns always bear fruit.