Presentation, prepared for the Virginia SEO Meet-up, on using personas to help make good decisions relating to SEO as well as web content.

1. Web Traffic Is/Are
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People
Getting around the data: using personas to guide search
strategy

2. Data is Good
• As long as we remember what it means
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3. If Anything…
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4. Ultimate Demographic Analysis
(from Douglas Adams)
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds
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not every one of them is inhabited
Any finite number divided by infinity is as near nothing as makes no odds
the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to
be zero

5. Web Development: Stakeholder
Input Method How about a call to action?
Get people to order all those
old flyers in the warehouse.
Mission
statement! And a
Kittens?
note from the
Director.
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The 300 page
whitepaper!
Maybe make it a
searchable PDF
and animate it?

6. Stakeholder Input: Output
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7. What Is SEO?
• Getting the right person to do the right thing.
• Traffic and behaviors that don’t measure that don’t matter.
• Sometimes the only way to see what does matter is to put
yourself in the shoes of the person you’re trying to reach.
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8. The “Just Create Traffic”
Theory
• Bill Cosby explained his adventure with his father’s car (YouTube here). He
had no idea where the gas tank was, and neither did the attendant who
eventually offered:
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• "Why don’t I just pour gas all over the
car, and maybe it will seep in
somewhere?“

9. SEO Would Get More Respect
• User Interface Designers managed to re-position themselves
as a critical part of overall strategy by focusing on the
experience instead of the interface – people vs. technology
User Interface => User Experience
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UI Becomes UX
• SEO practitioners have become increasingly marginalized
because we’re viewed as technical, not core strategy. Should
we follow a similar path?
SEO Becomes ?

10. Can We Figure This Out?
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11. Two Sites
Divorce Net
Divorce Support
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12. Different Data
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13. Looking At Some Websites
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