One of the best ways to help the search engines find your company is to add keywords to your website copy, images, and meta tags. Keywords are words and phrases people use in the search engines to find what they’re looking for. Proper research will help you determine which keywords will boost your website traffic and give you more opportunities to convert prospects to clients. Following is a brief introduction to keyword research.
Create a keyword list by brainstorming or using your website’s analytics.
If you were looking for your product or service online, which search terms would you use? For example, we would use terms such as SEO copywriting, web copywriting, and blog marketing. Take a few minutes to brainstorm keyword ideas, and make a list. Asking a few employees or clients to help you with this step will help you see possibilities you hadn’t thought of before.
If your website has an analytics module, you’ll know which terms people have used to find your site, and you’ll be a step ahead.
Find a keyword tool to help your research.
A keyword tool will show you how many times your keyword is searched every month. The most popular tool is the Google keyword tool, and you can search for others to use. It doesn’t matter which tool you use, as long as you are using one.
Enter each of your search terms to see how much traffic it pulls every month. The more traffic, the better. Write down the number of monthly searches.
Narrow down and be specific.
If you have generic keywords like “wedding planner” or “travel agent,” you’ll want to be a bit more specific. Most keyword tools will show related keywords or suggest more targeted keywords and show their search numbers. You can add a city, such as “Aspen, CO wedding planner” or “Charleston travel agent.” While adding a city or state does help your target audience find you, geographic keywords may not pull up search results in your keyword tool.
While targeted keywords such as “coaching for women” or “online landscape design” have far fewer searches than “coaching” or “landscaping,” they help your website to show up in the search engines. Generally speaking, you’re better off with keywords that register 5,000 searches a month than keywords that register 2 million searches.
Create your final list.
Decide which keywords you’d like to rank for, create a final short list, and then begin adding them to your meta tags, webpage copy, and images. You don’t want to stuff keywords into your copy, but work them in naturally. If you’ve chosen well, your keywords will easily slide into place on your website.
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