Audience research vs. keyword research: which wins for lead generation?

Author: Andy Crestodina

A few weeks ago, a fellow agency founder reached out to me. He wanted to talk about a problem he was having …with a keyword. He and his team had picked the phrase and made a very detailed page on the topic. They’d written 10,000 words. But the page wasn’t ranking.

I told him I’d take a look.

He shared the page and it was certainly detailed. And I started doing a quick bit of SEO for him: search volume, keyword difficulty, page authority, structure, originality. It looked fine. Any normal SEO would wonder what’s not working.

Then I stopped.

The phrase was very general. The intent was informational. The content was wordy and bland. It was basically no different from 1,000 other pages on the topic. Any normal marketer would wonder why the page was written at all.

He’s a smart guy, but in this case, not very strategic. Not very audience-focused. Even if he crushed his goal of ranking first for that phrase, what was the point? No one who saw the URL would remember it 10 minutes later.

You heard it many times. It’s what thousands of marketers do every day. Research a keyword, optimize the page, track the rankings, watch the traffic.

But unless you're a media site that gets paid on pageviews, traffic isn’t your goal. Your goal is leads. You need to drive demand. And if you’re focused only on keywords and search volume, you’re missing the bigger picture.

In a recent webinar with Wix Studio, I sat down with Crystal Carter, Head of AI Search and SEO Communications at Wix, to talk about conversion-first SEO. Here’s the big takeaway:

Marketers need to focus not just on traffic but on conversions. Not just on keywords, but on the visitor’s deeper needs.

That shift in perspective, from a keyword-first to audience-first mindset, changes everything. Make the shift and you’re no longer chasing numbers, you’re solving problems for real people. You’re focused on your future prospect.

If you know your audience, if you understand their questions and concerns, their pain points and challenges, you’ll naturally create content that connects and converts. Make it work for your potential prospect first, then capture keyword opportunities second. 

A page that is focused on the visitor and not just the keyphrase…

• Performs well for all sources of traffic

• Is more likely to be shared, bookmarked, talked about, remembered

• Triggers action

Let’s break down how audience research actually impacts the bottom, not just the top, of the funnel. We’ll dig into the dangers of keyword tunnel vision, and look at some real examples. 

Then, we’ll move into actionable tactics for researching your audience, uncovering their true information needs, and then write an amazing page that speaks to them directly.

A few minutes from now, you’ll see why keyword research alone is insufficient, and how adopting an audience-first approach gives you not just more traffic, but more leads. 

Keyword-first vs. audience-first

Let’s start with the problem. Too many content strategies begin with a spreadsheet of search terms. The SEO team says: “This term has 5,000 monthly searches. Let’s make a page for it.”

That can work, but it also creates blind spots. Why? Because you end up writing for algorithms, not humans. While strategy can feel like math, the real job is understanding a person’s problem and presenting a solution they connect with. 

So, rather than thinking in GA4 sessions and users, take a step back to ponder what goes on at the other side of the screen: Someone with a question searches for an answer, they land on a URL, pixels load, and their eyes see the light from their computer. 

The interaction between those pixels and their brain...That's the moment in which you become memorable or you don't. You become top of mind or you don't. You caused word of mouth or you didn't.

And worse, you can unintentionally isolate your real audience because you’re allowing tech company algorithms to get in between you and your customer. Keyword-first is when you go into your SEO tool of choice, you find a phrase with volume, and then you write the article. 

Audience-first is the opposite: you ask, what does my audience need? And then you write the page, even if the search volume is low. Even if it’s zero. Sometimes the right page is the one with only ten monthly searches, especially if those ten people are your exact prospects.

This is where AI comes in because you can dig into the most important, least covered topics in your category. Keyword researchers never find those. AI can help you better align with the intent of your actual customer instead of just an algorithm.

The “what is X?” problem

Let’s bring this point to life with an example. Imagine you sell building management systems. You need leads. So you put your SEO hat on and do some keyword research. You find a lovely little phrase “How to choose a building management system.” It has some search volume. You decide to go for it.

Using a keyword-first approach you plug the phrase into an SEO tool and it generates a content brief. Great. You hammer out a draft and the tool gives you a score. It could be higher so you slap an FAQ section at the bottom. The score goes up. Job done.

But when you step back and look at the page, you noticed that it has a big “what is building management system” at the top. Waaaait a minute. Does that make sense?

Think about your visitor. What do they need in this moment? If you rank, they click, the page loads...is this what they needed?

Based on the phrase “How to choose…” we know that they are in consideration mode. They’re trying to make a decision between options. So why did you write a page that starts with a definition? 

It’s absurd.

The page definitely does not help them in this key moment. You did what the tools said to do. But you made something that completely misses the mark. You used tools to write for a robot, without actually thinking about the story in the life of your visitor.

This visitor is a facilities manager or a real estate developer who’s actively considering their options. They’re middle-funnel, both problem-aware and solution-aware. They already know what it is.

That’s the danger of being keyword-first. You end up padding content with definitions and filler instead of addressing the visitor’s actual needs. 

If you were to approach this content conversion-first, you’d view the entry paragraph as a critical place to build trust and showcase the value of your company or brand. You’d use this prime real estate to help them choose a building management system. In the process you can show what you offer and how it stands apart from competitors. 

That shift from defining terms to directly solving problems is what turns passive readers into qualified leads.

How to use AI for an audience-first approach

Content marketers today are mostly using AI for brainstorming and editing, according to our annual Blogger Survey. More than writing headlines, suggesting edits, or creating visuals, marketers use AI as a thought-partner for content ideas.

I have to agree. I frequently work with AI as an accelerant, not an author. How can it help me understand my customer’s concerns faster? How can it put me inside the mind of a buyer sooner? These are the kinds of questions I ask AI to help me solve.

With that in mind, here are a few ways that I use AI to optimize the customer experience and generate more conversions:

Ask AI to go deep

Let’s say we’re targeting zookeepers. There might be a million searches for: what is a zookeeper, what does a zookeeper do, and how do you become a zookeeper. But do you think these are terms that actual zookeepers search for? I don’t think so.

So, rather than turning to an SEO tool, I ask AI: “What do zookeepers actually care about?” The results are wildly different from what I see in SEMRush. They care about glove thickness, dart guns versus blowpipes, and the best needle gauge for zebras versus rhinos. AI just told me what my true audience (and the audience most likely to convert) is interested in. Now I can create a content strategy that meets them where they are. 

And this content doesn't just attract your future prospects. This content opens an avenue to deeper dives into more niche expertise with the potential for original research. 

Not sure what to ask AI as you work to better understand your audience? Here are some questions to get you started:

Let AI audit your page for human-first elements

One key lesson in getting the most out of AI is leaning into what it does well, and one thing it’s great at is speaking in a way that only AI understands. That’s why I ask AI to generate all of my prompts. 

To start, I compile my best practices for digital content. Take a look:

• Strong opening hook

• Visuals at every scroll depth

• Use of evidence and examples

• Formatting (headers, bullets, etc.)

• Internal links to related content

• Expert quotes or contributor input

• Personal angle or opinion

• Topical completeness (no major gaps)

Notice how none of those are things that AI is awesome at. But AI is awesome at scoring content against these criteria.

So give those criteria to AI and ask it to write a re-usable prompt. Then use that prompt every time. Let AI audit all of your content moving forward. Drop screenshots of your landing pages into AI with that reusable prompt, and AI will grade the page based on these criteria. It will point out where you’re missing the mark and what tweaks need to be made. 

Try AI-powered personas

Good marketing is done from the bottom up. 

You need to understand your customer first. You need to understand their needs. An AI-generated persona can help. A persona is a synthetic member of your target audience, and you can use AI to come up with various key personas that you can then show your content to to see if it meets their needs. 

It works like this: 

• Give AI a persona prompt (see below)

• Review the output and improve it for accuracy

• Once it’s 95% solid, copy it out of the AI and put it into a PDF

• Upload the PDF and a draft of your page and ask it what’s missing from their point of view

Now you’re looking at a list of ways in which the page fails to meet their information needs and you can make some of those audience-focused edits. 

Ultimately, you need to know what wins the sales conversation to do good marketing. Keywords just attract visitors, but to convert them you have to solve their problems. Why put cheese on a broken mouse trap?

Some content needs keyword research. All content needs audience research. 

Keyword research isn’t obsolete. It’s still useful for understanding demand and competition. But it’s just the starting point. To put it plainly: Keyword research tells you what people type. Audience research tells you what people need.

The audience always comes first. Conversions happen when you meet your visitors where they are, using their words and answering their real questions.

Serve their needs, and the traffic and conversions follow. Audience-first content isn’t just better marketing. It’s respect for your reader’s time, attention, and trust.

So the next time you’re tempted to chase a shiny keyword, pause. Ask yourself: Would my audience thank me for this page? Would my sales team send it to a prospect? Would it help someone decide?

If the answer is yes, write it. Even if the tool says zero searches. That’s the difference between traffic and true marketing results. Because at the end of the day, rankings don’t keep the lights on. Customers do.

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Andy Crestodina, co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media

Andy Crestodina is the co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media, an award-winning 50-person digital agency, focused on web development and website optimization for B2B lead generation websites.

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