A list of tricks and tactics from Stephan Bajaio that will help you gain a deeper understanding of your customers. This won’t only help inform the search strategy for your company, it’ll give you insight that can be used across your business.
Overview
Speaker’s name: Stephan Bajaio
Job role and company: Co-Founder at Conductor
Links to Twitter profile: @stephanbajaio
Link to LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanbajaio/
What was the talk about?
SEO has the potential to be at the centre of the decision-making table. However, all too often, SEOs are the janitors of an organisation; spending too much time cleaning up everyone’s mess. Stephan’s answer? Evolving SEO by implementing search presence intelligence (SPI).
For maximum success, SEO needs to move forward and work with every other team/department in your company. There are a number of ways that this can be done — and things that you should avoid, such as SEO one-on-one sessions. As Stephan says, these can look self-serving and aren’t beneficial. Instead, we need to add value in other ways…
This could be getting your social team involved and becoming part of conversations on platforms like Quora. It could be letting demand drive opportunities (e.g. localised demand leading to localised brand awareness). It could be introducing your PR teams to the right journalists and contacts to promote your products.
One of Stephan’s most interesting points was on the use of jargon in search — in which he used an example of a beer can chicken holder. He explained the importance of the downstream naming of a product, and the need to think about what the customer will actually be asking or looking for. his data is incredibly powerful and can inform the product team’s decisions, ultimately affecting the success of a product in search.
#brightonseo be customer first! If you’re not helping people you’re just selling stuff… that’s what really rules. See what I did there 🙂 pic.twitter.com/rkP5qSKThv
— Stephan Bajaio (@stephanbajaio) April 12, 2019
Fave quote
On the importance of straight-talking and using the right language in search:
“Your jargon is just that — jargon”.
Potential impact on the industry
5.5 billion times a day people turn to search to solve their problems and look for answers. As Stephan himself says, this means that the search box is a true window into your customers’ minds.
By using search presence intelligence, we can learn about valuable insights hidden in plain sight. It can help use SEO to our advantage; informing decisions across the whole business, positively impacting different teams and areas beyond merely rankings, and giving SEO a seat at the decision-making table.
Key takeaways
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- SEO has the potential to be at the centre of the decision-making table by implementing search presence intelligence (SPI)
- Stay away from jargon — think about what the customer will actually be asking or looking for when naming a product
- SEO can work with and benefit every other team/department in your company if used correctly
