Balancing Technical and Emotional SEO
SEO is a field thought of as something that is mainly electronic or something that exists exclusively on the internet. That is true for the most part as some of the determining factors of success for a website are things like keyword quality, link quality, the speed of your page as well as user experience. Because of these factors, many SEO specialists have begun to focus solely on the technical aspect of SEO when it comes to their webpage optimization plans or strategies. This isn’t necessarily bad practice but it is the sort of practice that can be improved by giving some focus on another important thing: The users.
The Human Emotional Filter
I once wrote about the importance of Emotional SEO by talking about how the Human Emotional Filter (HEF) affects SEO in general. Gone are the days when all you needed for SEO was technical know-how because today, SEO is a multi-faceted field that requires its practitioners to be versatile in their craft. Many SEO specialists that I’ve met dabble with Marketing, Copywriting and Design on a day to day basis while the truly good practitioners make it a point to learn or cultivate a new talent whenever they can.
Simply put, one can never be too talented when it comes to SEO because when you deal with people, you deal with the limitless possibilities of them being attracted or repelled by your content and ultimately, your website.
The HEF is important to SEO because people were built to be emotional creatures – we feel emotions such as euphoria, sadness, desire and we feel these things at every waking moment of the day from when we wake up to when we fall asleep. While facts and figures in statistics may seem interesting to some, ultimately they are boring therefore they are hard to sell. Simply put, whenever someone is browsing your page, you are actively selling them your content in the hopes of making them stay.
Making people stay on your webpage is good because every time someone clicks on your links, your User Activity (UA) can be improved provided that they don’t leave.
So how do you make it worth their while? Good question. Instead of presenting boring facts that they can read in a book, try creating content that provokes people’s emotions. Essentially, you make them feel things by browsing your page.
Making People Feel
Did you know that interaction between your webpage and people being the moment they click on your link? Therefore it is important to create the perfect first impression. It’s the same thing with dating. You may have the best content in the world but if it looks dull, you’ll have a hard time finding people who might appreciate you. This is easily remedied though so don’t fret.
Check out the image above of a loving family. Doesn’t that evoke feelings of warmth? Of love? It’s the same way with SEO, you can make people feel things which can work out to your advantage.
Here are a few ways you can make people feel with your webpage from the moment they come in to the moment they go out:
Website Design – Creating the perfect first impression is actually not that hard provided that you took the time to design your webpage with love and care. Not only should your page load fast – it has to look good as well. Basically speaking, you want your webpage to look trustworthy and worth people’s time. That way, it will be easier for them to trust you and eventually, they might end up loving you for both your design and your content.
Copywriting – SEO and Dating have more things in common than you think. One of them is the importance of looking good and on the other hand, having the knowledge to back it up is important as well. Simply put, it’s not enough for your webpage to look good; you have to make your content worthwhile to your readers as well.
Video Content – Combining the importance of website design and copywriting, creating quality video content is important too as some people simply don’t have the time to read. Another important aspect to consider is that some people like learning through videos. In the end, it’s all a matter of preference as well as design.
Creating good videos requires good knowledge in design as well as the technical know-how to write content based on your expertise. Would you trust a person who can’t cook to teach you how to sear the perfect steak? Of course you won’t. It’s the same thing with copywriting and creating video content. You have to be able to present yourself as someone who is knowledgeable in what you’re trying to market to your readers.
Branding – Nothing spells “trustworthy” than by honestly introducing yourself to people who are meeting you for the first time. This is the same with creating your website. Create an “about page”, write about the clients that you have worked with, the history of your company as well as the people running the show.
After dazzling people with your website design and skills in copywriting, people will now actively try to learn about you. It is therefore important to leave your mark all over your website. Make yourself into a brand that people can trust and then watch them sell you for free.
Subscription – If people like what you sell, then naturally they will subscribe to your website to receive your future posts. This is beneficial to both parties because you’ll get more hits as well as loyal readers while they will learn from you. It’s a symbiosis where everyone really wins.
Conversion – This is the final step in attracting people to your website. You attracted people with your design and made them stay because of your worthwhile content so finally, you got them to stay and buy your product, services or idea, depending on what you’re selling.
This affects your SEO because if people like your website, they’ll stay and they will visit again. You convert them and you convince them to be loyal to your brand. This directly affects your DTM or Dwell Time Metrics because the longer people stay on your webpage; the better it is for your SEO. Create enough worthwhile content to engross people in what you’re selling and you’ll be better for it in the long run in terms of metrics as well as your customers’ loyalty.
Why Give Importance to Emotional SEO?
SEO specialists nowadays focus on the technical aspects of their website as well as technical SEO over user experience. This means that people are working towards appeasing search engines over providing a fulfilling experience for their customers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it’s something that SEO specialists can improve. Here are a few technical aspects that SEO specialists focus on:
Technical – Databases, Compatibility with Mobile Devices and Hosting.
Content – Engagement, Conversions and Meta Data.
Links – Internal Navigation, Growth Patterns, Analysis and History.
What this means is that SEO specialists are simply focusing on the technical aspects of SEO while minimizing optimization for the human side of it all. Instead of focusing solely on these things, you can also focus on providing the best user experience possible just by asking a few questions:
- What do our users and readers feel about our content?
- What do they think about our products and services?
- Is this something that they will share with their relatives, friends or colleagues?
- How do we get them to share their impressions on our products and services?
These simple questions are easily answerable with simple survey tools such as Qeryz but their answers will make all the difference in the world – to your readers, at the very least.
How to Balance Technical SEO and Emotional SEO
Here our key takeaway but do bear in mind that this isn’t a one-time fix, this is something that you should practice if you want balance to both technical and emotional SEO – and this is good for you in the long run.
Keywords – While it is tempting to reach the top one rank in Google for your keywords, try targeting your target audience with your keywords instead of focusing solely on making Google happy. It’s much easier for your content to be found if you tailor it for your human readers instead of Google’s search spider. Make your keywords more meaningful by using long-tail phrases, relevancy and of course, targeting.
Quality Content – People who use Google are most likely looking for an answer – so craft your content towards answering questions in your specific field. Give solutions that will make your readers happy. Strive to create educational content – or revise your old ones so long as they are still relevant to your field.
Targeted Links – Try to build highly concentrated or focused links that are sure to deliver traffic that will help your rankings and SEO.
Tech Stuff – Of course, technical SEO has been around for a long time because it is still the right thing to do. Strive to perfect your craft by keeping an eye on your webpage. Apply fixes and continuously monitor your webpage for anything that you can improve. Not only will this attract people to your webpage, because let’s face it, people like well performing websites, it will also help your SEO which helps your ranking with Google.
Strive to maintain the balance between Technical SEO and Emotional SEO by making your website and content both search friendly and user friendly.
There you have it. Balancing Technical and Emotional SEO has never been easy but this is a good, solid first step that you can take to make both Google and your customers happy.
