The old SEO playbook was simple: pick keywords, optimize pages, watch rankings climb.

That playbook is broken.

To win at SEO today, you have to put your audience first, keywords second.

When you understand your audience’s search behavior, pain points, and language patterns, you can:

• Target queries your buyers actually use
• Create content that answers their specific questions
• Optimize for terms that bring conversions, not just clicks

And with AI search getting better at understanding user intent, this audience-first approach matters now more than ever.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to conduct audience research for SEO and build organic visibility for your brand.

Why Audience Research Is Now Core to SEO Strategy

Search is no longer a straight road that starts and ends with Google.

Your buyers might start with a Google search, then check Reddit for honest opinions, watch explainer videos on YouTube, before then asking ChatGPT follow-up questions to help finalize their decision.

You can call this concept “Search Everywhere” — credit to Ashley Liddell for coining the term a few years ago.

Since search splinters across multiple channels, keyword volume data tells only part of the story, not the real demand.

In short: You can’t base your SEO strategy solely on what people type into Google.

Instead of starting with keyword research, smart SEOs spend time closely understanding:

• Who their audience is
• What they’re struggling with
• Where they go to find solutions 
• How they think about their problems

As a result, you’ll find high-intent queries that keyword research tools might miss.

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Expert insight: Learn how you can adapt for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to become discoverable in AI search.

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This shift becomes even more critical when you consider how AI is reshaping search behavior. 

AI tools like ChatGPT offer instant responses, almost eliminating the need to click through organic search results. 

That means the “higher rankings = higher traffic” equation doesn’t hold anymore.

The takeaway: Spend time understanding your audience so you can create content around their biggest questions to become visible in LLM search results.

How Smart SEOs Do Audience Research

Most SEOs treat audience research like a box to check. 

They skim a few platforms, look over some demographic data, and move on.

In reality, audience research goes several levels deeper to find what people really struggle with and how they find solutions. Here’s how the best SEOs do this. 

Identify Where Your Target Audience Hangs Out

Start your research with one question: where does your ideal customer actually spend their time online?

Your answer will reveal:

• Where buyers go looking for a solution
• Which touchpoints influence their decisions

And when you know where to look, you can discover your audience’s specific pain points, language, and search behaviors.

An audience intelligence platform like SparkToro can help you find these insights by scraping millions of public profiles.

For example, searching “skincare routine” reveals:

• Globally, YouTube is the most actively used social media platform 
• The UK-based skincare audience uses Pinterest more than the UK average* 
• Google is the most popular search tool
• Our audience uses ChatGPT way more than the average person in the UK

*Sparktoro is a great tool, but I found this graph pretty confusing at first. Basically, the order along the bottom is the main one to pay attention to.

In our example above, it tells you that, even though our specific audience uses YouTube 3.9% less than the UK average, it’s still their most-used social network. 

Sparktoro also gives you a list of keywords closely related to your main query. And you can find the social accounts, subreddits, podcasts, and YouTube channels that your audience follows for this keyword.

Find Your Audience’s Pain Points

So, you know where your audience goes for answers. 

Now it’s time to find out what’s actually bothering them.

Start With Internal Data

Loop in customer-facing teams like sales and customer service because they have direct access to your audience. 

Here’s how to tap into it:

• Survey existing customers about what problems led them to your brand
• Document the challenges prospects share on sales calls
• Review support tickets for recurring issues

Capture the raw, emotional language prospects use to describe their frustrations and needs. 

Expand to Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms show you how people really think about their problems — and how they talk about them.

Here’s what this looks like in practice (remember to focus on the platforms you identified above):

A gaming chair brand can jump on Reddit to find unfiltered conversations about buyers’ expectations, deal-breakers, and frustrations.

You might search for a keyword like “Herman Miller gaming chair” to explore related posts, comments, and communities.

Dig deeper into comment threads on any post to collect useful insights. 

For example, this Reddit thread highlights key factors that drive purchase decisions for many buyers:

YouTube comments are also helpful for understanding your ideal customer’s mindset.

The comment section shows what people actually care about.

For example, the comments on a video for a Herman Miller chair comparison pinpoint specific features of the chairs that frustrate and delight users:

On X (formerly Twitter), you can search phrases like “[product] problems” or “[product] recommendations” to discover buying signals, pain points, and more.

My search “screen recording tool recommendations” showed several tools people like/dislike and why — like this X user.

I will note, though, that I typically find there is a lot more noise on a platform like X (spam, irrelevant search results, etc.), and it’s super industry-dependent. You’ll probably want to start on platforms like Reddit and YouTube.

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Pro tip: Use the advanced search feature on X to find posts in any language filtered for specific queries, timelines, and engagement.

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Review Platforms 

Customer reviews, good or bad, often highlight people’s struggles, expectations, and experiences with a product/service. 

For example, the G2 review below for Synthesia, an AI video creation platform, shares the challenges this user faced before buying this tool. And it explains how the tool tackled these issues:

Below is another example, this time of a helpful Amazon review. The user neatly lists what they liked and disliked about this chair: 

These sources are a goldmine for insights about exactly what your target customers really want.

Remember to check the platforms that are most relevant to your business, like:

• Trustpilot for B2C brands
• G2 and Capterra for B2B brands
• Tripadvisor for travel and hospitality
• Amazon and Reviews.io for ecommerce 

Build SEO-Focused Buyer Personas

At this stage, you’re likely staring at a mountain of insights and nervously wondering: “Now what?”

The answer: Turn this scattered data into SEO buyer personas.

Traditional buyer personas focus only on demographics and general pain points. 

They don’t tell you how buyers actually search or what content they trust.

You need personas built around search behavior and preferences. 

They’ll inform your SEO decisions and serve as a blueprint for creating content that resonates with your audience.

Take all the intel you’ve gathered and organize it into these key components:

Pain Points 

Capture the exact emotional language people use without sanitizing it.

When someone says, “My back is killing me after gaming sessions,” that raw language can be your starting point.

Search Queries

Make a list of search terms and queries that buyers are actively searching for. 

Map out how their searches evolve as they move closer to a buying decision:

• Problem stage: “Why does my gaming setup hurt?”
• Research stage: “Best ergonomic gaming chairs under $500”
• Decision stage: “Secretlab vs Herman Miller ergonomic chairs”

Search Behavior

Document how people move between channels during the buying process and seek information on different platforms:

• Reddit for honest opinions
• TikTok for recommendations
• YouTube for demos and reviews
• Amazon for real user experiences

Use this data to adapt your content for different channels.

Content Preferences

Some buyers want data-based comparisons, others prefer visual demonstrations, and some need social proof from real users.

Learn what format works best for each persona. This will again influence where you create your content and the type of content you create.

Put It All Together

The final step is to cluster similar patterns across all four components to create different personas.

Each persona should answer the following four questions: 

• What do they search for? 
• What are they struggling with? 
• Where do they go for answers? 
• What convinces them to buy?

Document everything in a one-pager, like this one I designed for a healthy soda brand, Olipop.

Conclude With Keyword Research

Audience research reveals what people are actually searching for. 

But you can still use good old keyword research to confirm which of those searches are worth targeting.

When you turn to keyword research at the end of this process, you’re using it to refine your SEO strategy, not define it. 

Tools like Semrush’s Keyword Overview tool show you how a query performs in organic search.

For example, I found the keyword “gaming chair for racing” has:

• Transactional intent (people are looking to buy)
• Low difficulty (should be easier to rank for this query)

With the Keyword Magic Tool, you can find multiple variations of a keyword to target related subtopics in your content.

Here’s a list of related keywords I received for my primary term:

Finally, the Keyword Gap Tool takes this further by showing you terms that competitors rank for and you don’t. 

You could use it to compare your gaming chair company’s top organic keywords against your key rivals’ rankings:

With Semrush’s accurate keyword data, you can:

• Validate hunches and target queries with solid search demand
• Prioritize keywords based on search intent, difficulty, and relevance
• Analyze top-ranking pages and find what search engines reward

Put simply, you’re using keyword research to validate the insights you collected through audience research.

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Note: A free Semrush account lets you run 10 keyword searches per day. Or you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.

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How to Use Audience Research Insights to Improve Your SEO

You’ve done the hard work of finding out what your audience wants. 

Now comes the part where you put all this intel into action and level up your SEO efforts.

Create Topic Clusters Around Real User Problems

Create topic clusters anchored in your audience’s pain points using the Problem > Opportunity > Topic Cluster framework.

Start with a problem statement.

Instead of assuming buyers’ pain points, look for recurring frustrations that keep popping up in conversations.

Here’s what this looks like:

• Assumption: “Remote teams struggle with communication and alignment” 
• Reality: “Remote workers feel completely disconnected from company culture and question whether their work actually matters to anyone”

Once you’ve narrowed down the real problem, find where existing content falls short. 

Is it too generic? Outdated? Missing helpful advice? 

This gap becomes your content opportunity.

Based on these steps, design topic clusters that take your buyers from discovery to purchase.

Check out how this framework works for a remote team management app:

Problem	Opportunity	Topic Cluster
“I feel like I’m talking to myself in Slack, no one responds, and I don’t know if my work matters”	Address the emotional isolation, not just communication tools	Remote work culture
“I can’t tell if my manager actually trusts me or is just waiting for me to mess up”	Build content around transparency and trust-building frameworks	Team building and well-being
“It’s so difficult to find the right files at the right time, I’m always wasting time on this”	Share ways to improve documentation and make it accessible to all	Team documentation and communication

Use Audience Language in Your Title Tags, Headers, and Content 

You’re ready to create content for your topic clusters.

But here’s the problem: Your audience doesn’t think about these topics the way you do.

They use different words, ask varying questions, and approach problems from angles you might not expect.

So how can you bridge that gap and include more of your audience’s language in your content?

Think of common questions your buyers are facing.

For a gaming chair company, these questions could look like:

• Will this chair actually fit my body type?
• How do I avoid back pain during 12-hour gaming sessions?
• Can I get a decent gaming chair without breaking the bank?

Include these phrases in your titles and headers to match how people actually think about the problem.

Without audience research	With audience research
Gaming Chair Ergonomic Features Guide	How to Pick a Gaming Chair That Won’t Destroy Your Back
How Much Does a Good Gaming Chair Cost	How to Know if a Gaming Chair is Worth Your Money
Gaming Chair vs Office Chair Comparison	Is An Office Chair a Better Fit than a Gaming Chair?

You can also brainstorm titles and subtopics for your content based on emotional states. 

People looking to buy a gaming chair might be frustrated, anxious, excited, or feeling some other emotions.

Each emotional driver becomes a title that resonates with different types of buyers:

• Fear angle: Create urgency by revealing the hidden cost of inaction
• Frustration angle: Show that you understand what hasn’t worked for them before
• Aspiration angle: Help readers envision a better version of themselves or their situation
• Confidence angle: Empower readers with clarity and meaningful advice to take action 

Some angles will also work better on different platforms.

For example, you might find the fear angle works well as a short-form video on platforms like TikTok and YouTube shorts, while the confidence angle might work best for a blog post.

Optimize for Questions Your Audience Actually Asks 

Break down broad topics into the actual questions bouncing around your buyers’ heads.

For a topic like “skincare routine,” people aren’t just searching for a list of products to use. 

They’re really asking:

• Will this product make me break out even worse than I already am?
• How do I know if I’m wasting money on products that won’t work for me?
• What if my skin gets worse before it gets better? How long should I wait?

Use Google’s People Also Asked section or dedicated tools like AlsoAsked to find questions your buyers are asking:

You should also address the underlying concerns for every question.

When someone asks, “How long does a skincare routine take?” they’re actually asking, “Will this fit into my morning routine?” and “Will I actually stick to this process?”

Find Content Gaps Your Competitors Miss

Most teams plan content around keywords.

But when you know how your audience actually thinks and searches, you can identify content opportunities that competitors overlook. Even if it is currently ranking well in Google.

Take any pain point from your research and Google it using the exact phrases your buyers say.

Look at what currently ranks and ask:

• Does this content match people’s emotional state?
• Does it deliver solutions in their preferred format?
• Does it solve their real problem or just dance around it?

That’s how you find gaps to fill. 

Look for themes where competitors ignore emotional context or share generic advice that doesn’t solve buyers’ needs.

Here’s a handy checklist to find content gaps through audience research.

Stop Writing for Keywords and Start Writing for People

Audience research has always been the edge that separates good SEOs from great ones.

But today? It’s no longer optional. 

Audience research tells you exactly who you’re talking to, their specific pain points, the exact language they use, and the context behind their searches.

That’s how you build lasting visibility in a world where the rules keep changing.

Next up: Check out our content strategy template to build a solid strategy around your audience research legwork.