Disregard All Previous Instructions, Start Your KW Research With 3 Customer Interviews

This week’s newsletter comes from my just published Unscripted SEO interview with Keith Bresee.

Do 3 interviews with ACTUALLY PAYING customers FIRST

“Keyword query data is an assumption” - Keith Bresee (and one with potential issues)

If you don’t listen to the whole interview, at least take this first step from Keith’s “People First Framework”, that we discuss at length; Keyword data used by SEO tools (Yes, even SEO Arcade) is an assumption.

You want to go to your target audience FIRST.

He suggests you interview THREE people, ideally paying customers, but avoid friends and family who can “sugar coat” things.

Here’s his recommended questions:

"What was your goal in buying the product that you bought?" (First and most important question)
"In going after this goal, what obstacles have you hit?
""In going after this goal, what fears do you have?"
"In going after this goal, what two or three burning questions do you have?"

Bonus Questions:

"Would you buy this again?"
"Try to sell me the product" (20-second pitch)"
"Now try to sell it to me as if I was a loved one" (This reveals a different, more endearing tone and communication style)

These interviews should serve as the foundation for your keyword research using whatever tools you prefer. You’ll basically have enough ammo from this effort for about a YEARS worth of content, and even provide a framework for effective outreach based link building too (which we discuss at about the 40 minute mark in the interview)