Customer Speak: Your New SEO Friend

The other day I was lucky enough to read this blog by Linda Bustos over at Get Elastic. It’s a good read with good ideas about using customer reviews to your advantage.

One piece stuck out to me, the phrase “customer speak”. It got me thinking about SEO, and frankly every other form of marketing, in a whole new way.

Here is an excerpt:

“When reviews are added to a page, they use “customer speak” that other customers also type into search engine (including misspellings and specific problem/solutions, e.g. “socks good for diabetics.”) Make sure your review solution does not use frames that are not crawled by search engines. It can also help your internal site search for synonyms and misspellings you may have missed if you include them in your index.”

As business owners, we tend to see things from one side of the equation. We’re creating something and selling it to others. We know the value, and we have to try to communicate that to someone who does not know its value. So we use words and phrases WE think will get the message across. But do we ever stop to think about what THE CUSTOMER is looking for? Do the two ideas match up perfectly?

When advertising, or trying to attract attention in any way, it’s important to take a step back and figure out what the customer is looking for. Adding customer reviews to your site is a great way to help SEO. Maybe a customer survey, or even a focus group of people who are not your customers, could help you better understand the need you are solving for them, which may help you message yourself that much better.

Food for thought.