Screenshot of the content spec
Kristen Mirenda
UX Writing + Design Thinking + Product Know-How
Case study: New feature
Strategy, content, and UX copy for personalized SEO reports
Context
Alexa's On-Page SEO Checker did automated assessments for landing pages. It scanned a page and identifies changes that would improve the page's search engine ranking.
Target users were digital marketers and site owners from small-to-midsize businesses.
I was both Product Manager and UX Manager for this feature. I set design strategy, created the content, and did the final UX writing.
User interviews had shown that SEO was a source of anxiety. So my approach was to provide clear, actionable instructions along with positive encouragement.
Strategy
I mapped out the user journey on a giant whiteboard and annotated it with insights from user interviews. This helped me break down the problems we needed to solve, and do it from the user's point of view.
The map was an effective design tool. The team met in front of it, referred to it daily, and tested ideas against it.
Take a look at the original journey map in a Google Slides deck.
Content creation
Here what I did to create original content for the feature:
Worked with an SEO expert to identify topics and best practices
Wrote the business rules for when a page needs fixing or "passes" a topic
Wrote strings to feel cohesive when stitched together into a report
Created a copy-deck-meets-functional-spec that design, engineering, and QA could all use
Here's a PDF snapshot of the deck from our Confluence wiki. The Fix Copy and Pass Copy columns contain the two string versions for each topic. Visible annotations like the green checkmarks provide a look at how this spec was used by developers and QA.
Sample screens
In this scenario, the user wants a blog post to rank high when people Google "shakespeare for kids."
The user provides the URL and target phrase. Alexa scans the page and puts together a custom report with ways to improve the page so it ranks higher.
If these screens are too small to read, get a closer look in Google Slides.
Subscribers flocked to the tool after launch
Outcomes
After launch, a third of our 1,500 target customers adopted the feature in the first 2 weeks. It remained one of Alexa's top-tier features until Amazon discontinued the entire Alexa service 6 years later, in May 2022.