Ann Handley 分享从搜索者焦虑出发的 SEO 改写方法

A version of this story appeared in Total Annarchy, my fortnightly newsletter that helps you be a better writer, storyteller, marketer. Get it in your inbox; you’ll love it.

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As you open this, I’m hurtling through the air en route to San Diego, where I’m set to speak at an SEO conference tomorrow. 

I hate flying. (I do it all the time.) My palms are probably sweaty. I will have already made friends with whoever is sitting next to me, in case the air gets rough and I need to chatter mindlessly with them for assurance of our shared humanity.

From the outside, an airline customer looks like: A business traveler seated comfortably in Seat 1A, tightly buckled in, headphones on, laptop cracked open, working or watching a movie en route to smash it on stage.

From the inside, an airline customer looks like: A business traveler seated uncomfortably, just trying to get from Boston to San Diego without a full-body bloom of sweat.

Which of course brings us back to SEO.

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What a would-be customer appears to be doing and what they’re actually experiencing can be two wildly different things. Which is why the best SEO strategy has always been less about pleasing a colorless, odorless, mysterious Algo-god and more about pathological empathy for a single person.

That’s never been more critical than it is right now. AI Overviews are swallowing whole many of the clicks that once went to websites and blogs.

Across the aisle, AI is flooding the world with commodity content. It’s not slop, per se. It’s almost worse… because it’s perfectly serviceable information that looks and sounds like everything else.

It’s getting harder to win by publishing more of the same. (h/t to Oli Braithwaite for articulating that tension to me)

So the new challenge here in 2026 becomes: Understanding not just what that person is searching for… but also why. And also what they are feeling.

What’s happening in their world?
What are they worried about?
What are they trying to accomplish?
What’s really at stake?
Why does flying over Colorado take 11 years…?

In other words:

Don’t just understand the query. Understand the moment behind the query.

Your Sweaty Traveler Moment

Say someone searches for “best CRM for small business.”

The typical SEO approach is to serve up a comparison of features, pricing, integrations.

The modern AEO/GEO/whatever-we’re-calling-it approach is to make sure AI serves up that same comparison FIRST, cleanly and compellingly. Because there’ll be fewer clicks to your website. (And to show up in other places, too. But let’s focus on the website for now.)

Okay.

Yet I wonder… Does the comparison actually help the person making the decision?

What if the person searching is the owner of a 20-person company whose sales leads keep falling through the cracks?

They’re not really just shopping for software. Their palms are sweaty.

• Will my team actually use this?
• How painful will switching be?
• Am I about to spend $10,000 solving a problem a spreadsheet could fix?
• Did the guy next to me just order his sixth Jack and Coke?

The query is about software. The moment is about the sweaty fear of making an expensive mistake.

So instead of another “10 Best CRMs for Small Business” page, what if you led with:

How to Choose a CRM Your Team Will Actually Love to Use without Complaining Too Much

Or answered questions like:

Wait. Do You Even Need a CRM?

Yes You Really Have Outgrown Your Spreadsheet

We Switched CRMs. It Was Painful. Here’s Exactly What We Did Wrong.

You can still compare features and prices. But now you’re answering what they’re worried about, not just what they asked about.

Steal This Idea

Pick one important page on your website.

Before you optimize a single blessed thing:

1. Feel the sweaty palms. Forget the page itself for a sec. Go talk to customers directly. Or ask the people who hear from customers every day: support, sales, front-line folks. What are customers sweating right before they decide? What do they ask that seems almost a hair too hyper-specific? The odd, specific worries are solid gold.

Why not just ask Claude or ChatGPT? I guess you could… but I wouldn’t. Here’s the deal: AI will give you the predictable worries. Not the solid gold stuff that surprises you, or the thing you didn’t know enough to ask about.

There’s a second reason to not take the shortcut in this scenario. When you hear the worry firsthand, you feel a little of the anxiety, too. Your palms start to sweat in solidarity. That makes you a sharper marketer.

(And a better person, but that’s a newsletter for another day.)

2. Lurk on social. Poke around Reddit, LinkedIn, industry communities. What makes the palms sweat? What are they complaining about? Confused by?

Maybe: “We bought HubForce six months ago and nobody uses it.” Or: “Are we the only company still running sales on spreadsheets?”

The places where people air their worries are also the places you should be answering them, by the way. (Sorry; violating my policy to stick with website stuff for now.)

3. NOW rewrite the page. Address the sweaty palms right up top. Your page should literally be an industrial-sized silica gel pack absorbing all that moist anxiety. (Tempted to make a Do Not Eat (do not E-E-A-T?) joke but I’ll resist.)

Put those answers in Seat 1A, not buried in a Seat 32F next to the bathroom. And not in an FAQ graveyard that every SEO person seems to loooooove. (Sorry, SEO friends. Love you.)

(Checking in… how’s the turbulence? You good? If Mr. Jack’n’Coke passes out he’ll be of no use to us.)

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The goal isn’t necessarily more answers. It’s knowing which answers deserve to come first.

Search tells you what people are looking for.

Social can help reveal what they’re sweating through.

And your job isn’t just to help customers find you. Not really.

It’s to make them feel seen when they do.

There’s a hangar full of content out there answering question after question.

Not nearly enough that understands the sweaty-palmed human asking it.

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