Behavioral psychology reveals a lot about customer decision making. Principles such as the fresh start effect, fast and slow thinking, easy talk effect, and social proof can all be applied to SEO to better understand and influence customer intent.
This article explores how these specific behavioral concepts can improve your SEO and conversion rate optimization (CRO) efforts by leveraging customer psychology.
Inside the customer’s mind
Imagine, it’s the New Year and you have a few resolutions you want to tackle. Maybe you are looking to learn more about digital marketing. Maybe you want to exercise regularly, read more, spend less, whatever.
And interestingly enough, if you set those new goals for a new year, a new month, or even a new week, you’re actually (probably) more motivated to do it. It’s all because of a little thing called “new beginning effect.”
Simply put, when you decide to start something new at an important starting point, like the first day of the year, the start of spring, or the start of a week, it triggers a mental reset in your brain.
This helps you leave the past behind and motivates you to think and strive for a better future.
Wondering what this has to do with your SEO efforts? A lot.
Modern SEO and CRO is about a lot of things, and a lot of it is about understanding user intent, their journey, and how to create content that answers those questions.
Enter behavioral economics, which helps marketers understand why user intent is what it sometimes is and why certain things use intent while others don’t.
For a brief history lesson, behavioral economics is essentially a response to the concept of “rational man” in economics. When presented with a choice, humans will respond logically. At its core, behavioral economics calls this concept a lie.
Humans do not make decisions rationally. We know this implicitly as human beings, but the systems we built to determine whether a behavior or pattern falls within the “expected” range.
For example, several forecasting systems are based on rational man rather than behavioral economics.
Here are some common principles of behavioral economics that should be used in both SEO and CRO, including:
Fast and slow thinking Easy speaking effect Social test
Deeper: Increase Search Conversions: 5 Behavioral Strategies to Try
1. Fast and slow thinking
Fast versus slow thinking, and the tension between them, is the basis of behavioral economics. In many ways, it measures how good we are at using logic rather than emotions to make decisions.
And recognizing that sometimes, even though we think we can make decisions rationally, we make them emotionally and then justify them logically.
If you are curious to learn more about fast and slow thinking, I would suggest reading “Thinking, fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman. It is dense and deeply explains the concepts and tension between our two brains in decision making.
Fast and slow thinking, and the friction between them, is why product detail pages should mix aspirational and factual content.
People buying the latest iPhone might want it to think they make a decision rationally by looking at storage or camera specs and comparing them.
Still, they’re also looking at how pretty the photos are on their phone or how good that new color looks in someone’s hand.
How does this apply to SEO?
While it’s important to have product specifications and details on the page, it’s important to research and include answers to some of the more emotional and aspirational elements of the product.
So while it may be tempting to remove all the “marketing fluff” from the page when optimizing a product page for search engines, I don’t advise against it.
Maybe even add more excitement: think of questions that answer how this product is “leveling up” the person who buys it.
If you’re a local electric car dealer, instead of sharing the charging range, mention some specific milestones that the new owner could reach on a single charge. Maybe even include some photos of the car there with a driver enjoying an amazing sunset.
It’s a cliché, but honestly, it will probably work to generate more interest, both at the top and bottom of the funnel.
Some CRO tests to consider
The fast and slow thinking tests have many variations. Some to consider would be:
Isolated photos and in-situ/hand-held product photos. Product photos in situ/in hand vs. aspirational “levelled”. Highlight the features versus benefits of the product details.
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2. Speak-easy effect
The easy talk effect it’s when we tend to trust something more just because its name or idea is easy to say. It’s a little surprising, but in general, if it’s easy to pronounce, we’re more likely to trust it without question.
How does this apply to SEO?
Remember to keep it (stupid) simple (KISS). If a question can be answered in one sentence, answer it directly in one sentence.
If there is a lot of technical language for a specialized team, translate it for a professional. Keep the technical language in parentheses or include it elsewhere on the page or website for those who want the specs.
Write so that a random person who lands on the page can understand what you’re talking about without any prior knowledge.
This is also an important concept for how natural language processing works, especially the concept of dependency jumps – and keep them to a minimum.
So while it may be tempting to stuff your on-page “SEO content” with big, industry-related buzzwords, it can do more harm than good to your website visitors and their trust in your brand, which can hurt your SEO in the long run.
Some CRO tests to consider
Clarifies the language of call-to-action buttons. Simplify all language on your product page. Simplify all language on product collection pages.
I say “all the language” because I’m an advocate of big changes first in CRO.
To find out which changes have had an impact, I suggest doing a download test to confirm each change individually.
To me, it’s more important to have changes large enough to have an impact to reach statistical significance and not have the experiment run for decades to do so.
If every change you make to the page hits the same hypothesis, that’s fine.
Dig deeper: 5 behavioral strategies to make your content more engaging
3. Social proof
Social proof is widely recommended in e-commerce because it has proven to be effective. Its enduring popularity is rooted scientific evidence.
Social proof (sometimes called the bandwagon effect) gives our brains a shortcut to decision-making: other people liked it for ax, yiz, so we probably will too.
With social proof, it’s important to be aware of “the problem of positivity,” so that people online are a bit biased to give more glowing reviews, and people generally don’t trust straight 5-star reviews.
How does this apply to SEO?
Collect and use user-generated content in as many aspects of your website as possible. It can be testimonials, case studies, product reviews or customer photos. Think outside the box and specific to your product or service.
Check your customer service records and talk to customers to determine what convinced them to buy. Share more of this information. If this is user-generated content, please add the appropriate markup using the relevant schema.
Some CRO tests to consider
Pulling customer reviews higher on the page. Change the display or layout of reviews on the page. Include comments on the home page.
How to use long-term behavioral psychology in SEO
Using behavioral psychology is more than a given and there is no requirement to know all of our cognitive biases as humans (although it helps).
I would suggest carrying a principle with you as you learn and grow in SEO:
How does my ideal client/customer feel when they are considering this? How do I want them to feel after they’ve made a decision?
When you start thinking about how you want your ideal customer to feel, both in the process of making a decision and after they’ve made it, you’re likely to consider or be aware of many different cognitive biases.
Even if you don’t know the names of these feelings, you’ll probably develop a few guiding principles if you think about and understand what actions lead to these emotions.
Sentiments are commonly considered in user journeys, but may not be considered as often when creating customer personas, keyword maps, or performing standard SEO research. Advancing the idea of customer feelings can streamline these processes.
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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