In today’s digital age, having a well-optimized website is essential for any business looking to succeed online. However, simply focusing on keywords and topics may not be enough to stand out and connect with your target audience truly.

Rory Hope of HubSpot joined me on the SEJ Show to discuss integrating actual audience data into SEO strategies to go beyond the basics of critical terms & topics.

Learn how to integrate audience intelligence and social listening data into keyword strategies to understand your ‘SEO persona.’ You’ll be able to plan more relevant and engaging content and digital PR (link building) campaigns to generate better results.

Many SEOs I know sometimes struggle with integration into broader marketing. I think one of SEO’s worst enemies is being in a silo where people see the SEO’s role as being purely keywords or having and not having a voice in broader content strategy in strategic discussions. I think SEOs can start to bring in social data to support the reasoning as to why content is being published, to help keyword performance by tailoring it all back to the keyword topic, then building out from there and saying we’re listening to these publications and these influences because we’ve seen that these websites rank for these keywords topics that we want to target. –Rory Hope, 27:53

Social is fascinating because we’re looking at the digital marketing pillars –email marketing, social media, marketing search, organic search page search, and the ability to use persona typically are not necessarily integrated into what I would call traditional keyword research. A lot of the tools now have things like intent, which helps, but what does the persona look like, what does the buyer look like, who is the buyer when they’re searching for something, and what terms are they utilizing that others may not identify and better filter down into Google. –Loren Baker, 7:17

In the sense of SEO, we’re missing out on getting back to the audience and understanding the persona. So I think that audience intelligence tools have a real place at the table within an SEO toolset. –Rory Hope, 26:07

[00:00] – About Rory
[04:18] – What is Hubspot’s Hustle?
[08:01] – Importance of social data in SEO.
[20:26] – Key benefits of link acquisition opportunities.
[32:28] – How social data can work from an agency point of view.
[36:15] – Tips for teams that are spread out worldwide.
[38:23] – What C3PO means.

Resources Mentioned:
The Huste: https://blog.hubspot.com/the-hustle

Let’s look so, so what you need to think about here is I like to call it audience first SEO. So you know your base layer research, your foundational study remains the same. You are conducting keyword research, clustering keywords into topics, subtopics, intent analysis, and building a keyword targeting planner. I think that’s important to know. However, you would use social data to enhance your SEO strategy by integrating data sources from audience intelligence tools. –Rory Hope, 11:04

So I’ll reevaluate what will allow you to use social insights and social listening on the influences that you are confident in your SEO personas that search for keyword topics you want to rank that they are engaging with you regularly to enhance your SEO topic model content strategy. Then, you can keep adding relevant thought leadership content there so that it doesn’t go stale. –Rory Hope, 19:57

It all goes back to the core of marketing. Understanding your audience, understanding the sociology behind everything they do, what they’re talking about, why they’re talking about it, and identifying those trends that you feel have gotten lost in SEO. We’re so keyword-heavy; everything else, like identifying those trends, isn’t necessarily part of it. –Loren Baker, 24:04

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Connect With Rory Hope:

Rory Hope is a seasoned SEO and growth marketer who’s an expert in digital marketing strategy and leadership. Rory is the Head of Content SEO at HubSpot. He leads the Content SEO team, drives their strategy, and oversees organic growth.

He’s passionate about sharing his knowledge and helping others implement cutting-edge SEO and growth marketing strategies for their websites or businesses. So, if you want to take your digital marketing game to the next level, you won’t miss Rory’s insights and expertise!

Connect with Rory on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rory-hope-33a31066/
Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Roryhope.

Connect with Loren Baker, Founder of Search Engine Journal:

Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lorenbaker
Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenbaker