Empathy is key for SEO

If you want to write content that ranks well in Google, empathy is a huge part of helping with those efforts. It’s not that empathetic writing is more SEO-friendly style, but really understanding your customers will help you target the right keywords. It doesn’t matter what you think people should be searching for, but it’s entirely about what people actually search for.

According to Wikipedia, empathy is “ the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference “. People will search from within their own understanding of the world, so if you can join them in there, you’ll have a much better understanding of the words they use and how you can communicate on your website to reach them.

I’ve long said that much of SEO is overblown. There are things that can mess you up, for sure, but Google is really just wanting to see your site provide valuable content to your users. The better you get to know your users, the better you can speak to them, and Google will reward you for that.

Originally published at https://www.mickmel.com on July 4, 2021.