Understanding SEO search behavior
One of the most important steps in SEO settings is to understand how users search for the services or products offered by a company. Based on this analysis, the right titles, descriptions, images, keywords and structured data are selected and the structure of the website is determined.
There are different ways to understand search behavior and optimize a page for SEO. These complement each other.
Google Trends: Google Trends is a simple tool that shows and compares the popularity of different search trends. Google Trends is particularly interesting when you have to decide between different options. For example, are people searching more for "vegan restaurant in Vienna" or "vegan food in Vienna"? Depending on this insight, a vegan restaurant can determine and optimize the structure of its website.
People Also Ask (PAA) / Similar Questions (Google): Google offers valuable insights into search behavior with its "Related Questions" feature. Enter a question into Google that is answered on your website, e.g. (in the case of the vegan restaurant) "Where can I eat vegan in Vienna?" Google will give you a list of similar questions, e.g. "Is Vienna vegan-friendly?" If you want to promote your vegan restaurant in Vienna, you can answer this question in detail on your website and promote your restaurant at the same time. This is the essence of SEO: drawing attention to your business by addressing topics that are of interest to potential customers of your business.
Similar searches (Bing): Microsoft's search engine Bing has a mechanism called "Related Searches". For the same question "Where can I eat vegan in Vienna?" Bing displays a list of similar searches, including "best vegan restaurant in Vienna" and "vegan breakfast in Vienna". This example shows another very important aspect of analyzing search trends for SEO: you can adapt your business to users' wishes, for example, in the case of a vegan restaurant, also offer a vegan breakfast.
Google Search Console: If you already have a functioning website and access to Google Search Console, you can find out how your website ranks for certain search queries. This feature indirectly shows which search queries are important to users. Let's say you sell used cars online. Now you have a list of these used cars on your website, along with their color. For example, on your website with the title "used cars", the words "red", "blue" and "white" also appear. Now you can see in Search Console that your page is displayed very often for the search query "used car red", but is hardly clicked on because you still have a poor ranking on Google for this search query. To improve the ranking for this search, you need to create another page with the title "used car red" on the existing website. This new page will then only display the red used cars.
Google Ads Keyword Planner: If you already have access to Google Ads (Google's advertising platform), you can access the Keyword Planner. This gives you a very good overview of the search volume of certain words and (short) phrases.
Experience: The more you engage with your customers and their needs, the better you will understand how they think and what they are looking for. Don't ignore your own experiences. Especially in niches, some trends are not captured by search engines like Google because Google needs a certain search volume to recognize preferences. In the example of the used car: If your local customers often ask for used cars with summer and winter tires, set up a page about it on your website, even if there is no data about it on Google or Bing.
A look into the future: Don't neglect your instinct for market developments in your industry. If you have a feeling for what will be important in your industry in the next 5 years, but hardly anyone is talking about it yet, then set up a page on your website now to become a reference for this topic early on. This way you will be the first to get a good ranking and ideally many backlinks on this topic and secure a strong position in the future when the topic becomes topical.
AIs like Chat GPT: AIs like Chat GPT know the World Wide Web like no other and have access to billions of pieces of information. It is always useful to ask an AI how people search for certain topics. A possible prompt for Chat GPT is: What are possible search queries on Google for the topic “Wellness Hotel Zillertal”? Replace “Wellness Hotel Zillertal” with the expression of your preference.
As you can see, SEO is a very versatile topic. Just to understand the search behavior of your users, many aspects have to be analyzed and combined. In addition, there are paid analysis tools that can be used. However, if you apply the steps above, you are on the right track.