Personalization and dynamic content are valuable tools to keep customers on your website, drive engagement, and ultimately boost sales. Even SEO leaders agree on the fact that personalization is the future of everything.
The dawn of personalization has been gradual. It’s happened in small augmentations across multiple mediums and channels, so it has become omnipresent today, almost without us noticing.
According to Daniel Page, an SEO-focused web host, prior to the internet and social media, brands communicated with their audience in ways that were largely passive and static. Radio, television, and print ads provided too little interaction, therefore requiring a specific type of message.
Once prominent platforms like Twitter and Facebook worked their way into our lives, consumers have begun to demand an approach to branding, marketing, and service that focuses more on their journey than it does a brand itself.
Language and Country
According to a 2019 survey, 91% of consumers are likelier to shop with companies that provide curated, relevant offers and recommendations. A similar survey shows that 80% of consumers are likely to purchase from a brand that emphasizes personalized experiences.
Let’s put it this way. You try to Google “concerts in Melbourne”, and somehow your search engine already knows that you have booked a flight. Stunningly, it displays concerts for the weekend you’ll be in town.
It knows.
But how? And how does one of those events in Melbourne optimize its website to make sure its shows are displayed in the types of personalized search experience so it can turn these searches into ticket purchases on its platform?
People want to see search results in the language they used to Google. Even better if, when they get on a website, their experience is consistent. The language people are searching in, alongside their location, is an important element around which Google algorithms rank and show content.
How does language personalization look in action? Let’s say a large retailer has customers located around the world, including a few countries that share the same language. When someone located in Mexico googles something about a product, they will see branded results from the retailer in Mexican Spanish. Their equivalents found in Spain will get a similar experience for their Spanish dialect.
To rank in the SERPs and surface content for customers in both Spain and Mexico the business will need to optimize their content for both language and countries. In doing so, they help customers to find branded content from the retailer in the language they understand, but it also allows the organization to further personalize the experience once those prospects do click through the site.
Location Specific-Search Personalization
Everyone is different. That’s why Google’s search should be the same for every individual?
In a nutshell, that is the concept behind search personalization. It can also be helpful when search engines recognise what you like and what you don’t. But a bespoke SEO strategy doesn’t limit to only language and country; location also comes into play when your query involves the need for a specific place. Why? Because it makes complete sense that prospects from whole various locations see different SERPs returned after an identical location-based query.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that this factor is one of the most important ones. Regardless if you’re logged in or logged out, Google knows where your IP address is located.
What’s more, if you’re using your smartphone and geo-tracking is on, now Google may know even more than you would consider comfortable.
Let’s put it that way, if you were a care provider located in Texas, most likely you’re looking to drive more patients to their four locations located across Texas.
Luckily, the location data transmitted from most mobile devices and search engines not only know that your client searching for urgent care is on a mobile device located in Dallas: their algorithms will also display locale-specific content to personalize and enrich such search experiences. Your organization has just optimized its web content accordingly.
However, if your audience is locale-specific, at least make sure you have locale-specific content on your website. Think about your prospects and how their specific locations factors into how they’re likely to find in SERPs. But if your business happens to have multiple locations, make sure you create landing pages for each of those locations that include everything from hours, details, addresses to embedded maps of your current location.
Prior Search Language and Click History
Have you ever noticed how platforms like Instagram are constantly tailoring the type of content you see daily in your feed? And you’re like, How does it even know that I love content about cinema and indoor plants? This is not a mere coincidence; it’s a busy search algorithm that uses the data you’ve given based on your search history.
Similar to Instagram, Google works in the exact same way. If you’re logged in as a Google user, its algorithm will adapt your search results based on what you’ve previously searched or engaged with.
You can control how Google uses data, but you can come up with content that gives them something to work with. Where to start? Always look for the natural language queries that people are using today. You can tailor your content accordingly when you already know what people are looking for. Find specific groups of users or prospective customers and track traffic, rankings and conversion from this traffic.
Why Personalization Matters to Your SEO mix
It is pretty clear why. Because today’s demand for personalized experiences has never been so strong. The fast expansion of devices and channels is giving us more ways to search for information through search. This, in turn, gives search algorithms more power than ever with which to personalize search experiences.
Businesses that can find ways to display their content within these highly-personalized experiences will gain a considerable competitive advantage, so the end-user doesn’t care how they find your business, only that they can find you when they’re searching.
