The online visibility of your business is all built on keywords. The ability of your customers to find your business online without knowing what the actual URL of your website all depends on using the right keywords. Being able to outperform the competition depends on using the right keywords.
So as you can see, keywords are pretty important, and it can be very confusing for those small business owners who are not very familiar with how the right keywords should be selected, or how they should be implemented in their websites.
So what do you need to know about selecting the right keyword phrases and keywords? Let’s look at this more closely.
1) Use the Right Keyword Tool
There is a good chance that you think you have a fairly good idea of which keyword terms your customers use for finding services or products similar to yours online. Chances are good that you are also partially right at least.
However, don’t ever assume you know all of the potential phrases, keywords, and variants that customer may use in Internet searches.
That is why it is critical to use a keyword research tools that can actually help you determine which keywords to target. It is free to use the Google keyword planning tool, but there are many others that are available that are worth considering.
2) Get Inspired By Your Competitors
Although you might not want to target every single keyword that your competitors do, since that would drive up the competition and costs on all of them, you should check out what they are targeted and take some clues from it.
You will discover that can provide you with a lot of useful information on keyword phrases, long-tail variations, and perhaps even the density you want to target in your content.
3) Begin With The Basics
There are many experts that recommend that you start out getting a “seed list” of targeted keywords and then build from there. A seed list is just light of accurate, highly target keywords that are valuable for your business.
Over time you can grow or build on this list by continuing to add more keywords as you find new terms, learn more, discover what words your competition is using and utilize advanced research tools.
4) Whenever Possible Localize
Although your reach will be limited by localization, there are several reasons why this can be very important. First of all, your competition will be reduced. Second of all, it will make your business more visible to potential customers in your local area.
Third, it will help to improve your overall online visibility for these keyword terms and reduce how much time you need to wait to achieve a return on your investment. Along with your keywords, use the names of your city, county, or nearby areas when applicable.
5) Use Similar Terms And Iterate
After you have selected the keywords you are going to start with, spend time finding similar terms that would be smart to use. For example, if you own a shoe store, you may be targeting keywords such as women’s running shoes, however, you may want to choose things like women’s wide width shoes, or perhaps Asics women’s running shoes as well.
6) Select Keywords That Relate To Your Services or Products
Sometimes, the best keywords for your services or products are not the ones that are used frequently by customers. So should you skip those? No, definitely not. That can actually turn out to be good.
Make sure to implement some of the keywords that more commonly used, but mainly focus on the best and right keywords even when they aren’t as frequently used as some other keywords.
You will get more targeted traffic and the overall competition on those keywords will be a lot lower, along with your costs, if you decide to use those keywords as part of your PPC campaigns.
7) Keep In Mind That Quality Content Trumps Keywords
It definitely can be tempting thinking that all you have to do is implement the right keywords. Unfortunately, that is not true.
Google, in fact, rewards websites that don’t do a lot of keyword optimization but have excellent quality content more than websites that do a lot of keyword optimization but fail to have quality content. Keep in mind that content is king no matter what. Keyword accuracy and density always are secondary to quality content.
8) Carefully Use Misspellings
When searching for services or products, consumers frequently misspell the words they are using. For example, they might type in diabetic products instead of diabetic products. Or instead of construction tools, they may search using construction tools.
You get the idea. It is important to target these misspelling, but don’t overdo it. They should definitely factor into your content creation and optimization but don’t put too heavy of a focus on them. Your content can end up looking like a second grader wrote it and will look very unprofessional.
9) Identify Main and Secondary Keywords
Whenever you are thinking about keywords, there is a good chance it is primary keywords you are considering – those that directly relate to your services or products.
However, secondary keywords should also be considered. They relate to whatever you are offering, but not to the same degree that primary keywords do.
For example, say your company sells locally sourced and harvested honey. Your primary keywords would be things like unpasteurized honey, natural honey, and local honey, but you could target secondary keywords as well such as organic foods and natural snacks.
10) Select Background Keywords and Focus Keywords For Your Individual Pages
Your website will not only have secondary and primary keywords used throughout it but you also want to have one focus keywords that you use the most frequently and secondary or background keywords that aren’t used as often but still tie into the conversation overall and provide you with valuable content and help you optimize for the search engines as well.
Selecting the best keywords is much more complicated than just using names of services or products in the content on your website. It requires planning, strategy, and a lot of intelligence to successfully pull it off.
