I guess this one should be filed under “Duh”. The use of personas is pretty common while defining user interfaces and is a valuable tool in defining use cases, usage scenarios.
It is a very logical next step as you move from the what to build (through Customer Development) to the actual building (Product Development). The KissMetrics blog has a an interesting post today on how you can use Personas to define your SEO Keywords. When figuring out which keywords to optimize for (and bid), it is especially important to speak the “user’s tongue”. Use of the right terminology is not only important within your product, but it is even more important to get it right, to make sure you get your positioning right. Personas help refine the SEO key terms and I think are also a great way to figure out which segment works well and which ones don’t.
While I have used some of the underlying techniques here, I have never actively thought of extending personas in the context of SEO. Overall, a great read. Check out the the entire blog post at the KissMetrics blog at How User Personas Can Improve Your SEO Strategy