Blending SEO & UX to Build Content for Real People

People-First Content: Why It Matters in the Era of AI?

As AI-dri­ven and con­ver­sa­tion­al search trans­forms how users dis­cov­er con­tent, cre­at­ing help­ful, peo­ple-first con­tent is essen­tial. 

In this new land­scape, we should­n’t be talk­ing about con­tent cre­ation for SEO, GEO, or AIO. Instead, we should focus on cre­at­ing con­tent that gen­uine­ly serves peo­ple.

At the heart of today’s most effec­tive SEO strate­gies lies brand author­i­ty— which can only be earned through high-qual­i­ty con­tent and user sat­is­fac­tion.

This is where SEO and UX blend. While SEO helps us under­stand what peo­ple are search­ing for, UX reveals what dri­ves their inter­ests and why they behave the way they do. Togeth­er, they form the foun­da­tion for tru­ly user-cen­tered con­tent strate­gies.

The syn­er­gy between SEO and UX offers a pow­er­ful frame­work for under­stand­ing not just what users search for, but what dri­ves their online behav­iour and needs.

People-First Content is Not New

It’s worth not­ing that peo­ple-first con­tent is not some­thing new. Google has been advo­cat­ing for real peo­ple ori­ent­ed con­tent since a while ago. Core updates, E‑E-A‑T, Help­ful Con­tent Updates were all launched with the goal to secure use­ful con­tent in the search results. 

With the appear­ance of AI Agents and the announce­ment of the AI Mode, this mes­sage is rein­forced.

Google’s rec­om­men­da­tion on how to per­form well in the AI-pow­ered search results: 

How SEO and UX Can Work Together to Build Smarter Content Strategies

🔍 SEO Reveals What & How People Search

SEO revolves around under­stand­ing what peo­ple search for: 

• Which key­words they use when search, 
• Which ques­tions they ask, 
• What kind of con­tent ranks well. 

By ana­lyz­ing key­word trends, SERP fea­tures like “Peo­ple Also Ask,” and com­peti­tor con­tent, SEO pro­vides a data-dri­ven map of user intent.

How­ev­er, SEO alone does not answer why users behave the way they do and what emo­tion­al dri­vers shape their behav­iour online.  

💬 UX Answers Why People Behave the Way They Do

To under­stand the real rea­son behind user behav­iour more in depth, we can com­ple­ment the SEO analy­ses with more exhaus­tive research, such as UX research. 

UX research adds a human lay­er to key­word data, uncov­er­ing users’ moti­va­tions, frus­tra­tions, and needs.  Com­bin­ing SEO and UX helps us empathize with our audi­ence and design con­tent that tru­ly serves them.

While SEO pro­vides valu­able insights into search pat­terns and user intent through key­word research and SERP analy­sis, UX research methodologies—including in-depth inter­views, sur­veys, and online forum analysis—reveal the deep­er moti­va­tions, frus­tra­tions, and needs that dri­ve user behav­iour.

SEO and UX in a Unified Framework

How UX Complements SEO in Content Strategy?

• UX research uncov­ers deep­er needs and moti­va­tions: Insights from inter­views, sur­veys, or user feed­back can com­ple­ment key­word research and help scope more con­ver­sa­tion­al queries. 
• Inform­ing more nat­ur­al, con­ver­sa­tion­al con­tent: UX insights help expand key­word tar­get­ing to match real-life user ques­tions and phras­ing.
• Cre­at­ing key user per­sonas: Allows under­stand­ing dif­fer­ent types of users and tai­lor­ing con­tent to address their needs in dif­fer­ent ways.
• Struc­tur­ing con­tent for real peo­ple: Many UX prin­ci­ples can enrich SEO by guid­ing on how to cre­ate user ori­ent­ed pages. 

UX Research Methods That Elevate SEO Strategy

UX research is a per­fect tool for cre­at­ing user-cen­tered con­tent strate­gies. It gives us a deep dive into the why behind user behav­iour. UX research pro­vides insight into users’ moti­va­tions, needs and behav­iour, which is some­thing that can per­fect­ly com­ple­ment our SEO strat­e­gy.  

Con­nect­ing SEO with UX research isn’t just about improv­ing search rank­ings or user expe­ri­ence metrics—it’s about cre­at­ing con­tent that gen­uine­ly serves people’s needs.

Here are key UX research meth­ods you can use to enrich your SEO strat­e­gy:

🎤 In-Depth User Interviews

In-depth inter­views are a great way to learn more about your users. The user is asked explorato­ry, open ques­tions allow­ing a deep dive into their behav­iours, frus­tra­tions, expec­ta­tions and aspi­ra­tions when it comes to cer­tain prod­ucts or ser­vices. 

What you can learn:

• What users like or dis­like about a cer­tain top­ic.
• Their emo­tion­al trig­gers, moti­va­tions, and pain points.
• The main fears, chal­lenges or doubts.
• What dri­ves users’ actions and online behav­iour.

UX researchers usu­al­ly ask the user about their rou­tine, about the way they use a prod­uct or ser­vice, about the chal­lenges but also ideas on how to improve. The asked ques­tions are open-end­ed and there is enough space for the user to express them­selves and their feel­ings. 

💡 Example:

In a project aimed at improv­ing the online shop­ping expe­ri­ence for an e‑commerce site, in-depth inter­views pro­vid­ed valu­able insights for enhanc­ing the con­tent on the prod­uct detail pages (PDP).

The inter­views with users showed:

• Users like their online shop­ping expe­ri­ence to feel safe and mir­ror a real life vis­it to a cloth­ing store. 
• They appre­ci­ate trans­paren­cy and real­is­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of prod­ucts and are frus­trat­ed if mis­led in terms of sizes, costs and ship­ping times. 
• Many users men­tioned trust issues when buy­ing cloth­ing online. 

Based on these insights, the PDP was improved, includ­ing con­tent and cer­tain ele­ments to make the user feel safe, build trust and avoid frus­tra­tions:

The UX research out­lined mul­ti­ple ways in which the con­tent on the prod­uct detail pages (PDPs) should be cre­at­ed and struc­tured to pro­vide a sat­is­fy­ing expe­ri­ence for the users. Blend­ing this infor­ma­tion with SEO sure­ly would result in an high-con­vert­ing PDP that tru­ly meets user expec­ta­tions.

📊 Surveys and Online Polls

Sur­veys and online polls are a great way to ask ques­tions and get pub­lic opin­ion on dif­fer­ent top­ics of inter­est. Online plat­forms such as Dis­cord, Red­dit or Face­book Groups are per­fect for con­duct­ing this kind of research. 

Anoth­er effec­tive way of dis­trib­ut­ing sur­veys and ask­ing ques­tions are Newslet­ters. You can offer dif­fer­ent ben­e­fits, such as dis­counts or presents to your users to moti­vate them to answer your ques­tions. This is a great way of get­ting valu­able feed­back and con­tent ideas.

What you can uncov­er:

• Com­mon ques­tions or con­cerns users have.
• Gen­er­al opin­ion about a top­ic.
• Key infor­ma­tion gaps when it comes to a cer­tain top­ic.
• User expec­ta­tions around prod­uct or ser­vice.

👥 Getting to know your User Personas

UX research and insights from real users enable us define key user per­sonas in detail, under­stand­ing their:

• Search behav­iour and habits,
• Tech com­fort and device usage,
• Pain points, goals, and moti­va­tions,
• Chal­lenges and frus­tra­tions.

Under­stand­ing the key user per­sonas types will enable you to cre­ate con­tent strate­gies for each one of them, address­ing their spe­cif­ic needs and moti­va­tions. 

For exam­ple, if we are a cloth­ing brand, and one of our user per­sonas loves shop­ping, but is also envi­ron­men­tal­ly aware, address­ing envi­ron­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty relat­ed top­ics might help us build empa­thy and con­nec­tion with this user per­sona type. 

If one of our user per­sonas is inpa­tient and exclu­sive­ly uses mobile devices for online shop­ping, this will high­light how impor­tant it will be to put effort into Core Web Vitals and mobile respon­sive­ness. 

Learn­ing about your dif­fer­ent users and their needs is essen­tial for build­ing a user-dri­ven con­tent strat­e­gy and ensur­ing good user expe­ri­ence. UX research is an excel­lent tool for achiev­ing this.

💻 Online Forums Analysis (with AI)

Online Forums analy­sis involves review­ing the con­tent across dif­fer­ent forum dis­cus­sions, pro­vid­ing insights into ques­tions users com­mon­ly ask, trends, sen­ti­ment and shared infor­ma­tion. 

Forums like Red­dit, Quo­ra, and niche com­mu­ni­ties offer a gold­mine of unfil­tered user opin­ions and ques­tions. 

This type of analy­sis can be time-con­sum­ing. Luck­i­ly, we now have AI to help out. 

This is a great way of set­ting the base for fur­ther key­word and user intent research, offer­ing an insight into a broad­er pic­ture to inform our con­tent strat­e­gy. It can be par­tic­u­lar­ly handy if you are short on resources.

What to analyse: 

• Com­mon­ly asked ques­tions about a top­ic in your niche. 
• Main frus­tra­tions users express regard­ing rel­e­vant top­ics. 
• Com­mon­ly described chal­lenges users face.
• Emo­tion­al tone and vocab­u­lary they use. 

💡 Example:

In a project focused on defin­ing a con­tent strat­e­gy for a weight loss app AI was used to analyse niche relat­ed forums and Red­dit to get answers on what users are dis­cussing online regard­ing weight loss. 

This analy­sis helped iden­ti­fy key user frus­tra­tions, com­mon chal­lenges, and pro­vide con­tent sug­ges­tions to address them. 

Key frus­tra­tions: 

• Users are wor­ried about sus­tain­abil­i­ty and main­tain­ing a diet long-term.
• There is a gen­er­al con­cern about fit­ting healthy habits into a fast-paced lifestyle. 
• Con­flict­ing nutri­tion­al advice over­whelms and con­fus­es the users.

Cre­at­ing a board where key user frus­tra­tions and chal­lenges are list­ed is a great way to iden­ti­fy poten­tial top­ics to address.

These insights tell us that users wor­ry and are afraid of fail­ure of not being able to achieve their ide­al weight and fit­ness goals. This is a very impor­tant point to have in mind when cre­at­ing the con­tent strat­e­gy. 

Learn­ing about these insights rep­re­sents a great base for fur­ther key­word research and SERP analy­sis, which will alto­geth­er result in user-cen­tric con­tent strat­e­gy.

🛠️ SEO & UX Tools to Support UX-Driven Content Strategy

To ful­ly blend SEO and UX into a cohe­sive con­tent strat­e­gy, the right tools on both sides are essen­tial:

Ahrefs, SEM­rush: key­word trends, search vol­umes, search intent, com­peti­tor data.

Google Search Con­sole: user queries and per­for­mance.

AlsoAsked and AnswerTheP­ub­lic: con­ver­sa­tion­al and long-tail ques­tions users are ask­ing. 

Fig­Jam, Miro: brain­storm and design user inter­views 

Google­Meet, Zoom: con­duct­ing inter­views online

Hot­jar, Maze: track­ing user behav­iour, con­duct­ing inter­views

Final Thoughts

As we nav­i­gate the evolv­ing AI-dri­ven search land­scape and con­ver­sa­tion­al inter­faces, the mes­sage is clear: con­tent cre­ation must pri­or­i­tize real peo­ple over search algo­rithms.

The syn­er­gy between SEO and UX offers a pow­er­ful frame­work for under­stand­ing not just what users search for, but why they behave the way they do. 

While SEO pro­vides valu­able insights into search pat­terns and user intent through key­word research and SERP analy­sis, UX research methodologies—including in-depth inter­views, sur­veys, and online forum analysis—reveal the deep­er moti­va­tions, frus­tra­tions, and needs that dri­ve user behav­iour.

This com­bined approach enables con­tent cre­ators to move beyond sur­face-lev­el opti­miza­tion toward build­ing gen­uine brand author­i­ty through qual­i­ty con­tent that deliv­ers user sat­is­fac­tion. 

By devel­op­ing detailed user per­sonas and under­stand­ing diverse audi­ence needs, brands can cre­ate con­tent strate­gies that address spe­cif­ic chal­lenges while build­ing empa­thy and con­nec­tion with their users.

Con­nect­ing SEO with UX research isn’t just about improv­ing search rank­ings or user expe­ri­ence metrics—it’s about cre­at­ing con­tent that gen­uine­ly serves people’s needs.