Keyword research is an area of search engine optimization that is often not understood by businesses as a key marketing tool. When building or updating a web site, business owners are often asked “What keywords do you want to use?” Instead of giving a list of keywords they think the market uses, better to lean on the SEO services of your web design company. Finding the best keywords for your online marketing is an involved process that includes watching the effectiveness of keywords over time.
First, let’s introduce a working definition of “keywords”. Keywords are:
- Search terms of one or more words used by web users to search for products, services or information.
- Terms used in a web site’s content (title, headings, meta tags, and paragraphs) that are key terms in describing a business’ products, services or information offered.
Effective keyword use matches a web site’s choice of keywords to the keywords customers’ use in their online searches. Customers can always surprise business owners with the terms they regularly use. Best to know what they use and deliver your web content using the customers’ language.
Web sites like Google’s Adwords and WordTracker offer services that shows what terms are used on an average daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Experience says that doing three or more keyword usage searches are best since business owners and SEO services start with the web site owner’s list of keywords. Keyword research tells business owners what their customers’ search terms are.
An example is choosing keywords for a chiropractor’s professional services web site. Do customers usually search for: chiropractic practitioner, practice, doctor, or clinic? Or even more general terms like “wellness clinic” or “alternative health clinic”? Chances are all these terms are used, however, your online marketing strategy should focus primarily on the most used terms.
The second phase of keyword research is checking the web site’s traffic logs. Which terms show visitors checking more than one page and which terms regularly bounce visitors off the site? How many visitors check two or more pages is a more important success factor than how many visitors checked the site. Visitors who bounce off the web site do not generate sales leads.
As in any marketing, quality of leads makes money, not quantity of visitors. Keywords are the online marketing tool for winnowing the field.
Lightwave Web Design knows that a business web site’s keyword success hinges on the depth and effectiveness of the keyword research so we do a minimum of three keyword searches with at least two of the keyword research web sites. Contact us if your web content needs a keyword review. Different keywords can net business owners a whole new market for the same products and services.
