An effective, simple concept every search marketer should leverage is the process of developing a search persona. Similar to a marketing persona, creating a search persona helps professional B2B marketers to accurately identify their target customer, to understand how users are actually searching for their business online and to ultimately, drive higher conversion. This is not a very time-consuming process, and will have a significant impact on your marketing efforts behind search and must be the foundation for your SEO strategy. Understanding the keywords your prospects use and the places they go to find information is the critical first step in implementing a successful inbound marketing strategy.

1. ®
5 Steps To Building A Search Persona
It’s easy for online B2B marketers to become distracted by the search engines and forget 1. Know Your Audience
the real reason they’re doing SEO in the first place: the customer. Customer demand is the
driving force behind search and must be the foundation for your SEO strategy. Whether
you’re an SEO newbie or already running a few SEO campaigns, it’s important to take a 2. Understand Your
Audience’s Pain Points
step back and determine what techniques really align with your customers’ needs. and How They Solve Them
An effective, simple concept every search marketer should leverage is the process of
3. Provide Real Solutions
developing a search persona. Similar to a marketing persona, creating a search persona
helps professional B2B marketers to accurately identify their target customer, to understand
how users are actually searching for their business online and to ultimately, drive higher
4. Be Compelling
conversion. This is not a very time-consuming process, and will have a significant impact
on your marketing efforts behind search and must be the foundation for your SEO strategy.
Understanding the keywords your prospects use and the places they go to find information 5. Know Your Data
is the critical first step in implementing a successful inbound marketing strategy.
1. Know Your Target Audience
Identify a target audience that is most likely to turn into customers. Ask yourself: Who’s my perfect buyer?
For any businessperson (regardless of SEO), this is something you should be able to answer.
Target Audience Searcher’s Pain Search Queries Solutions Compelling Metrics
Point Call-to-Action
Small size
company
owner in North
America looking
for a security
software for
their
business
2. Understand Your Audience’s Pain Point(s) & Know How They
Search to Solve Them
How would your target customer articulate their need for this in terms of keywords? How do they search?
Determine the queries that are used by your target audience, are aligned with your business goals,
and appear in significant enough volumes.
Target Audience Searcher’s Pain Search Queries Solutions Compelling Metrics
Point Call-to-Action
Small size Needs Business
company business security
owner in North security software,
America looking software security
for a security software for
software for business
their
business
Optify, Inc. 710 2nd Ave, Suite 840 Seattle, WA 98104 www.optify.net 1-877-2-OPTIFY
© 2012 Optify, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

2. ®
3. Provide Real Solutions
Create great content that’s well optimized for the search engines, but also meets the
needs of your target customer and provides calls-to-action that encourage users to
further explore and engage with your product or service.
Target Audience Searcher’s Pain Search Queries Solutions Compelling Metrics
Point Call-to-Action
Small size Needs Business Content
company business security includes
owner in North security software, overview,
America looking software security software description,
for a security for business review and
software for testimonial, as
their well as fraud
business validation
4. Be Compelling
Offer a call to action that compels the searcher to dive deeper into your conversion funnel. For example,
this might be a discount code, or an online form. Basically, a feature that allows you to keep in contact with a
user and offers them an incentive to stay engaged with your website and product or service.
Target Audience Searcher’s Pain Search Queries Solutions Compelling Metrics
Point Call-to-Action
Small size Needs Business Content Free trial,
company business security includes purchase
owner in North security software, overview, now, call for
America looking software security description, consultation,
for a security software for review and compare
software for business testimonial, as products
their well as fraud
business validation
5. Know Your Data
Make sure you’re regularly tracking performance metrics that help demonstrate
the efficacy of these campaigns.
Target Audience Searcher’s Pain Search Queries Solutions Compelling Metrics
Point Call-to-Action
Small size Needs Business Content Free trial, Rank, traffic
company business security includes purchase for your target
owner in North security software, overview, now, call for keyword phrase
America looking software security description, consultation,
for a security software for review and compare
software for business testimonial, as products
their well as fraud
business validation
Optify, Inc. 710 2nd Ave, Suite 840 Seattle, WA 98104 www.optify.net 1-877-2-OPTIFY
© 2012 Optify, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

3. ®
Conclusion
One of the most overlooked aspects of this process is to truly try to understand the target searcher’s
agenda. Think of yourself as you search for something. All the pages you bounce off of, because they
aren’t relevant, trustworthy, or are too complex for one reason or another. Search persona only works in
context with business goals, and content that was designed for them. Doing only one thing out of the
overall list above will not bring the desired results. Now that you’ve built your search persona, examine
your website’s content and existing SEO campaigns and make any adjustments necessary to align with
the criteria you’ve identified in this process. Don’t forget to apply the lessons you’ve learned from building
your search persona, to all of the content you are using for your
inbound marketing efforts. Make sure your presentations, videos,
white papers, podcasts and other content posted on third party sites
are keyword optimized and tagged appropriately. Apply the same
discipline to your social marketing efforts and you’ll be well on your
way to building a sustainable inbound marketing engine. INBOUND DEMAND
Enterprise-class SEO and
About Optify social marketing to reach
more buyers and generate
Optify delivers an integrated top-of-the-funnel solution for more leads.
marketers responsible for fuelling their company’s growth. Optify helps
B2B marketers reach more buyers and generate more demand for
their products or services month-after-month. The Optify Inbound
Marketing Software Suite brings together the enterprise-class SEO and
social marketing tools that marketers need to increase awareness of
their business, influence buyers across social networks, and engage
SALES ENABLEMENT
with prospects at the earliest point of their buyer’s journey.
Visitor intelligence and
prospect alerts help sales
Optify’s Solution Includes reach prospects while
they’re hot.
Inbound Demand: create a sustainable flow of inbound leads into your
marketing funnel with enterprise-class SEO and social marketing.
Sales Enablement: help sales reach prospects and engage with them
early in the sales process with visitor intelligence and prospect alerts.
TRACKING & ANALYTICS
Tracking & Analytics: get more of the prospects you want with full
insight into what influences your buyers and the path they take to find Insight into what
and evaluate you during their research process. influences your buyers
so you can get more
buyers into your funnel.
Optify offers a fully-featured free trial;
start your free trial now www.optify.net/sign-up
Optify, Inc. 710 2nd Ave, Suite 840 Seattle, WA 98104 www.optify.net 1-877-2-OPTIFY
© 2012 Optify, Inc. All Rights Reserved.