Having a beautifully-designed website with enticing imagery and useful information about your services is an ideal start. However, more work is required if you want to get people looking at it. Search engines are the libraries of the internet, serving people’s search inquires with the corresponding answers according to the search keywords they use. To get traffic to your site organically, you need to make sure you are using the right language/keywords in your onsite copy. This means researching search terms to discover which ones are best suited for guiding the right customers to your business. Here’s how you can get started.
Get to know your customers
The first step to knowing which keywords to use is to understand who might be searching for your product. Who are you trying to sell to? Which problems can you solve for them, or which needs/wants can you fulfill? Having a customer persona in mind can be very helpful not only as a starting point for keyword research but in many aspects of digital marketing. Write it down, make changes as you further define your target market, and keep this persona in mind during the keyword research process.
Dive Deep
Say you’re selling doormats. Just using that one word frequently across your site will not only look and sound unnatural, but it will not indicate to Google and other search engines that you have well-rounded content. SEO experts, keyword tools, and other services can help you to create a list of alternative words or phrases with the same meaning (“welcome mat”, perhaps) as well as long-tail keywords which are more specific key phrases that might be involved in—or comprise—a search (“where to buy the best doormats”).
There are many tools you can use to find relevant keywords. The best way to get an accurate and comprehensive list, however, is to consult an experienced professional. With constant algorithm changes throwing many different factors into the ring, expertise in the field is a major advantage.
Think about your location
If you are selling online and your product is 100% globally available, you need not worry about location-based keywords. If, however, you operate in one region, one country, and particularly in one city or neighbourhood, then they will be an important part of your strategy. Businesses with a brick-and-mortar component, take note.
To hone in on the right clients or customers, you should use location-based words and phrases in conjunction with the ones describing your product or service. “Doormats for sale” is a much broader search term with more competition than “doormats for sale in Levin.”
Use them to their best advantage
Once you have the keywords you need to succeed, the next step is to put them to good use. You know what people are searching for, and now you have to give them what they want.
The keywords you have will guide your content. Questions being asked? Answer them! Specific topics might jump out at you while looking at the words and phrases, such as “funniest doormat slogans.” Use these as the basis to write (or have written) natural-sounding, engaging content. Blog posts are a great way to do this as they can be very topic-based, but you should work keywords into all pages where it is possible to do so naturally. Make sure that all of your content is spelled correctly with good grammar and easily readable.
Finding the right keywords may seem like one small task in the big project that is digital marketing. However, it is a foundational building block. Being seen by search engines is crucial to being seen by potential clients or customers. Having the right words on your site is how you can achieve that.
To get it right, get help from the professionals. Media Giant can perform extensive and effective keyword research as part of our SEO services, and guide you through a Wellington SEO strategy that works for your business from start to finish.
