It all starts with words – keywords.
People often hear about these “keywords”, and they ask their web designer if their new site will have keywords in it. But do they really understand what that means? What is a keyword and what does it have to do with anything?
What is a Keyword?
A keyword really refers to a word or a phrase. Keywords can be a combination of words that describe your product. A keyword is a targeted word (or phrase) that relates to your business.
But it goes further than that. Keywords also have to be relevant in search.
Huh? Relevant?
What I mean is, people have to actually care about that word and be typing it into search engines. There must be some actual activity. Who cares if your website is number 1 on Google for purple watermelon feet if no one ever searches for purple watermelon feet? (Let’s all check back soon and see if this site is indexed for purple watermelon feet!)
Keywords also must be relevant to your website. This means that the words need to be present in your content, and other elements of your website, signifying to Google, Bing, and Yahoo that you are a good resource for that search.
Researching Keywords
To have a great SEO strategy, to begin with, you need to start with a strong keyword list. This list might be 10 niche words or it might be 50 strong phrases. Ideally, it is a list of phrases that are narrowed down enough to target your specific audience – your ideal customer – and also not so saturated with competition that you will never climb up in the ranks.
When we are planning SEO campaigns, we strive for phrases that are receiving a good amount of search activity every month (for example, several hundred people each month are searching for that phrase), and that have a medium or low competition level in Google. The Google keyword tool is helpful with this analysis process.
It is also very important to use the human mind to work out your keyword strategy. No software will understand everything about your customer. You can conduct additional research by asking your customers questions about their “pains” or paying attention to their most common questions, asking your friends and unbiased contacts for opinions about what they would search for when looking for your product (or who they would ask), and even doing surveys to better understand your customer profile.
Using creative thought and a little leg work, you will arrive at a well-thought-out keyword list that can really work for you.
Keyword Ideas Recap:
- Most frequently asked question in your business.
- Your typical customer’s “pain”.
- Your typical customer’s need. (Remember – you don’t sell drills, you sell holes.)
- Product description with geography word (such as your city or state).
