Data-based search personas

What data-driven search personas are and where they help

Analogous to the data-driven Buyer Persona, the Search Persona helps to identify and understand target customers. The field of search engine optimization has been shaped by a variety of innovations and updates in recent years. Successful SEO and SEM (search engine marketing) require more and more technical knowledge and specific skills. It can happen that communication departments adapt the SEO strategy solely to the conditions of the search engine. The customer or user is then forgotten. The increasing complexity means that the actual goal is lost from focus: satisfied and returning users. This is where the Search Persona comes in - it is 100% oriented to the actual, data-based search queries of the customers.

Developing the Search Persona is not a huge amount of work. With the help of the Search Persona, you can learn to understand the driving forces behind a search query: What motives drive the user's search query? What is the search intent behind the keywords? What patterns and behaviors does the user exhibit on the website? A Search Persona can answer these and other relevant questions.

Advantages of data-based Search Personas

Data-based search personas can be created from a variety of data. A combination of website analysis data, keyword data and already existing Buyer Personas is suitable.
An example illustrates the advantages of the Search Persona: You run a hardware store and already have a Buyer Persona. Michael, 35, is technically and craft savvy, has his own workshop and likes to do work on the house himself. From this data, you can already draw some conclusions for the Search Persona: His search results will be particularly specific because he knows his stuff. Long tail keywords, i.e. keywords that are very niche and consist of many words, he will use frequently. If Michael is looking for a screw, he will not search for "screw", but rather for "Allen screw M8 stainless steel". For this search result, he then wants to be taken directly to the appropriate landing page where he can buy the screw. Many companies make the mistake of linking to a menu page for specific search queries instead of a product-specific landing page. This is where Michael would get off.

The example shows how the website as well as SEO and SEM strategy can already be precisely targeted using the persona. Together with the responsible teams for usability, website programming, product development, and content marketing, you can use a search persona to target all relevant applications and products. In the first stage, this includes an analysis of the current state, e.g. an evaluation of existing KPIs such as bounce rate, dwell time, number of visitors, conversions, etc. The next step is to create a Search Persona. In the next step, the search persona sets the direction - it points out possible weak points and helps to steer the company processes in the right direction.

To summarize:
Search Personas...

• ...help to identify and understand the target group (the user)
• ...support the accurate analysis of existing KPIs and website data
• ...improve the quality of search queries and keywords
• ...help to optimize the website structure and usability
• ...are the basis for more traffic and conversions

How to create data-driven search personas

Step 1: Create Buyer Personas

Data-based Search Personas are based on the already existing Buyer Personas. If you have not yet created any Buyer Personas, you should urgently do so. The Search Personas are not a substitute, but merely complement the Buyer Personas. The Persona Profiler supports you in developing precise Buyer Personas.

Step 2: Collect search terms and analysis data

To develop a Search Persona, we need reliable data, just as we do with any other persona. Therefore, start by creating a list of the search queries that lead people to your website. To do this, you can use primary data from Google Search Console, for example, but secondary data using other services is also possible.
Tip: The Persona Institute is a Searchmetrics partner. Feel free to contact us for individual solutions.
When collecting data, you should pay attention to the associated analyses, because: Different KPIs need to be evaluated differently. Here it depends on your goal: Clicks are important for conversions, impressions help branding, click-through rate sets the tone of competitive analysis.

Step 3: Arrange data

Not all collected data is necessary for the creation of a Search Persona. The Buyer Personas provide orientation. Use them as a guide and delete all keywords or search queries that are not related to your Buyer Persona. For example, if you run a swimming pool in Dortmund, search queries such as "swimming pool Rostock" will not get you anywhere. You can then safely delete these. You can also remove search queries that might be relevant to negative personas, e.g. "swimming pool Dortmund scandal".
After you have eliminated unsuitable terms, you should now have a list of suitable search queries or keywords as well as data that match the basic buyer personas of the company.

Step 4: Segment search queries

Particularly important in order not to lose sight of the company's goals: Segmentation. This involves not analyzing each individual keyword, but grouping the search queries. The basis here is a perspective that you consider particularly important for your company. This perspective should be a strategic decision as well as based on the company's goals and its key performance indicators (KPIs).
We briefly present some popular segmentation approaches:

• Topic: Search queries are grouped by topic here. This usually results in overlapping terms within the queries. In the end, you get thematic clusters. In itself, such thematic classifications can also be done by programs. But the final segmentation into topics should be done by a human. This is recommended because some keywords fall into several topics and areas and algorithms cannot yet distinguish this semantically.
• IntentAs a rule, search queries can be divided into three general groups, depending on the intention with which the user makes a search query:
  • Information - the user wants to receive information;
  • Transaction - the user wants to perform an action on the website;
  • Navigation - the user wants to get to a website.
    Some queries can also be classified into all of the three groups.
• Customer JourneyWith the help of various customer journey frameworks, it is possible to segment search queries. Based on the sales funnel, three phases of the customer journey can be distinguished:
  • Top of Funnel: Search - Search is about gathering information.
  • Middle of Funnel: Decision - This search is about narrowing down a possible product/service selection.
  • Bottom of Funnel: Purchase - This search is about finding the right provider to purchase the product or service.

Overall, it should be noted that search volume decreases the further down the funnel you move. However, the lower volume here can have a greater impact on sales.

Step 5: Create user profiles

The penultimate step is to merge the segmented search queries with the demographic data of the searchers or website users. You can pull the demographic data here just as well from a primary source, e.g. Google Analytics. Likewise, second- or third-hand data can serve as a basis or supplement, e.g., customer databases. Research shows that demographic data can be inferred based on search queries alone. However, only a few search queries are directly associated with demographic characteristics, which is why you usually have to interpret and link them to search queries yourself.

Step 6: Enriching the user profiles with data

The last step is just to enrich the resulting user profiles with further data. Complete the user profiles with missing demographic attributes, name, picture, areas of interest, relationship to the company, etc. Here, very similar characteristics, interests, and desires are possible as with an ordinary buyer persona. The difference: you derive these characteristics from the user profile and the search queries. The Search Persona is ready!

We would be happy to help you create a Search Persona - contact us.