How to Make Keywords Work for You
If you’ve ever talked to a web-site designer, you’ve heard about ‘making your website search-friendly’or heard the term ‘SEO’thrown around. The purpose of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is to ‘get them in the door.’These days, that’s likely to be with Google. Creating content for the right keywords will help your business appear in the search results that your customers use.
But what words to use? That’s where the fun starts.
Write down every word and phrase that comes to your mind when thinking about your business. If you get stuck, some questions to ask yourself are:
- What service or product(s) do I provide?
- What problem do I solve for my customers?
- What characteristics does my business have?
- How would I describe my product(s)?
- How do my customers describe my product?
With your list in hand, head to Google’s keyword planner. You’ll need a Google AdWords account here, but you don’t have to run ads.
You simply need to be able to login, then…
- Take the best keywords or phrases from your list and place them under the Search for new keyword and ad group ideas. Focus on average monthly searches and competition and see how commonly that word or phrase is searched for. Ideally, you want words or phrases that lots of people are likely to look for, but ones that don’t already have a lot of takers (i.e. competitors).
- With your key words picked out, it’s time to organize them. Try to think like a potential customer. If they wanted a product or service, how would they go about searching for it? Typically people start searching more general and then slowly narrow their search until they find exactly what they are looking for.
- Now that you have the path a potential customer could take, it’s time to make sure they find you at each stage of the search. Using your keywords, search each one on Google and take note of the type of content that appears on the first page. Continue as you drill down and get more specific. That way you’ll get an idea of what content Google finds relevant to a particular phrase, which in turn will help you decide the type of content you should create.
‘SEO’may sound like a highly technical term, but the concept behind it is pretty simple. Find the key words and phrases that best describe your business and make sure those words are featured prominently in your content. You might not be established enough yet to have customers think of you when they think of ‘Product X’, but with the right keywords, you can make sure your company’s name comes up in their search.