Visualizing keyword insights for non-SEOs
It can be difficult to explain keyword research and gain support from those who are unfamiliar with SEO.
Stakeholders often find it difficult to grasp the value of SEO, and at the same time, SEOs struggle to communicate the benefits and contributions effectively.
Fortunately, there are strategies available for SEOs to bridge this gap by employing their keyword research more strategically and effectively. This article explores how to effectively communicate keyword research insights outside of the search industry.
Leveraging unique visuals
Non-SEO-savvy stakeholders may not know much about search keywords but likely understand general marketing concepts like the marketing funnel and audience segments. You can use this knowledge to create strategies that are aligned with the broader marketing terms. You can create a bubble graph to represent each cluster of keywords within the marketing channel, as shown in the chart below.
You group keywords according to intent. It shows the content needed for each stage of the marketing funnel. The keyword intent visualization above and drilling down into the “all weather tires” cluster shows “Awareness content” should be produced in order to target these clusters. Unlocking this insight means SEOs can match the searchers’ expectations.
This visualization shows how certain keywords help users move through the marketing funnel, and there are more actions you can take to optimize it further.
Companies often use audience personas or segments in broader marketing efforts. Integrating this knowledge is vital for effective communication, especially with stakeholders focused on paid search, as they commonly associate keywords with audience segments.
Likewise, by utilizing ChatGPT, SEOs can categorize keyword topics based on audience personas, resulting in a visual representation like the one below:
This chart displays the size of various topics and indicates which audience segments are most likely to engage with content related to those topics.
With these visuals, you are in a stronger position to develop more effective content strategies and enhance your communication with stakeholders outside the search domain.
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How to build the visuals
The effectiveness of these two visuals is undeniable, though they require additional effort to develop.
Keyword intent cluster
SEOs can use various approaches to build keyword intent clusters, but I’ll outline the most straightforward and effective method.
To begin, we need more than just keyword data and search volume to craft this visual. It will be necessary to have the top 10 organic listings as well as a score for keyword intent. You can use any tool that provides keyword intent. When creating my own visuals I used the DataForSEO api and assigned a scoring for each SERP features that appeared on SERPs. Then, I calculated the average score of each keyword. This can be done in tools like Semrush, by converting the categorical keywords into a numerical scale. When assigning values to each intent, choose a minimum value that represents transactional intent and maximum value that represents informational intent. By assigning a numerical value between two intentions, a blended intent can be calculated. Now that we have a numerical value for keyword intent, we can create intent clusters. By leveraging Google’s intelligence, we can create more accurate and pertinent keyword clusters by gathering data from the page 1 organic listings. To create clusters, you will need to compile all the organic listings of a keyword and compare them with another keyword list. You should also keep track of how many similar pages appear in each list. After completing the analysis, you will be able to create a similarity matrix that is identical to the one shown below. Next, create clusters, and then aggregate their metrics. Through my experimentation, I discovered that establishing a threshold at 4 or 5 similar URLs resulted in the most cohesive clustering.
Once all keyword clusters have been aggregated along with their metrics, it’s time to assemble a bubble chart. Data at this stage should be aligned with what follows:
Each bubble cluster should start with a value 0 on the chart’s x-axis, unless you want to fine-tune the visual in order to reduce overlap. I recommend initializing all clusters to 0 once the bubble chart is generated. This fine-tuning is essential. Compare the examples below to see how this step impacts the visual. To see the impact of this step, compare the examples below.
After fine-tuning, the visual is complete and ready to help communicate the value of specific keywords to stakeholders outside the search domain.
Associate topic clusters with audience personas
If you can access your company’s audience personas or segments, use this information to better align with stakeholders.
Integrating topic clusters with audience personas offers insight into the content that targets each audience within a business. These insights enable SEOs to identify content gaps and potential areas for improvement, equipping them with the necessary data to communicate more strategically.
A quick analysis of the chart below clearly reveals that the business is not effectively engaging with “Emma.” This insight could be used to help determine the direction of future content creation. There are many ways to create a chart similar to the keyword intention cluster visualization. I’ll show you the easiest method I found.
Start off by giving ChatGPT a list of your audience personas, and ask it to summarize them. ChatGPT will be able to better understand your audience personas if it is given the opportunity to summarize them. Here is an example of a prompt:
“I will give you a list with topics and I want you to categorize them based on my audience personas. I also need your knowledge about each topic. Write a paragraph on each persona before you begin to make sure that you fully understand them. Please return the keywords to me in a table that I can copy and paste into Excel. After categorizing the keywords, please return them to me in a table that I can copy and paste into Excel.
Persona 1:
NAME: INSERT PERSONA NAME
DESCRIPTION: INSERT PERSONA DESCRIPTION – RECOMMENDED >100 WORDS
DEMOGRAPHICS:
AGE: …
GENDER: …
LOCATION: …
EDUCATION: …
INCOME: …
FAMILY LIFE: …
STRUGGLES: INSERT LIST OF STRUGGLES/PAIN POINTS
HOBBIES: INSERT LIST OF HOBBIES
VALUES: LIST PERSONAL VALUES OF THIS PERSONA
Persona 2:
Persona 3:
.”
When creating this prompt, provide ChatGPT with comprehensive details about each persona. The summaries will help ChatGPT to get a better understanding of audience personas.
After confirming that it has an accurate grasp of the personas, proceed by uploading the list of keyword topics that require categorization.
If all goes well, ChatGPT should generate a table for you that is separated by commas and resembles the following structure:
Next, simply transfer the output to Excel and utilize the “Text to Columns” feature to split the data effectively.
Once the data has been collected, convert the audiences’ names into values for the bubble chart. This means that Brittany is now represented by number four on y-axis. Take the average audience value for topics that are assigned to more than one audience.
For example, the topic “fuel economy” was classified for John and Emma. It was therefore assigned 2.5 as a value of audience. After gathering all the necessary data, convert the audience names to numerical values. This will be used for the bubble chart.
To illustrate, Brittany will be represented as the number four on the
y
-axis. Calculate the average of the audience numbers for topics that are assigned to more than one audience.
Take, for instance, the topic “fuel efficiency,” attributed to both John and Emma, resulting in an assigned audience value of 2.5.
Subsequently, count the number of subjects assigned to each audience and allocate a numerical value to each topic, indicating its position on the x-axis. After gathering the data, SEOs create bubble graphs using Excel.
They can enhance the graph by incorporating additional visual elements, such as background images or gradients, to delineate segments for each target audience clearly.
Visualizing complex SEO concepts for effective stakeholder communication
Bridging the gap between SEO concepts and stakeholder understanding is challenging but crucial. With keyword intent clusters, audience persona charts and other visual aids, SEOs can easily convey complex concepts.
By using the visual aids described in this article, it is possible to provide stakeholders with strategic content insights aligned with familiar concepts. The opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Here is a list of staff authors.