Before staking out any fund on SEO, your first task is to select the suitable keywords. In trying to pick the right keywords, you need to understand what is behind the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of people’s search. When people surf the web, they are looking for information on the solution to a problem as well as answers to questions.
Here are helpful tips for selecting the most suitable keywords:
- Have a brainstorming session: This is when you would embark on critical thinking to come forth with list of phrases you perceive visitors would likely employ when searching. The list would turn to be your intuitive word list.
- Take advantage of your competitor’s website: Look for the phrases your competitors are using, that are also applicable to your offerings. Another technique for uncovering the target keywords of your competitors is to visit sites such as keywordspy.com, or compete.com.
- Know when to go local: If you are competing for local market, it is better to go local with your keywords – local keyphrases help you rank higher in a faster and easier way. Example of local keywords include florist in Houston, painting contractor in Austin etc.
- Think like your customer, at least momentarily: A customer would enter a search query such as ‘home for sale’, while you may be using an expert term such as ‘real estate for sale’. So, you would need to bring your keywords to the level of the customers, their preferred search terms.
- Take advantage of keyword tools: The free Google Keyword Tool can be useful for this purpose. Also, paid Keyword Service such as WordTracker can be helpful.
- Consider the phrases used by buyers: This is usually 3 – 5 words or longer. They may also include specific locations and refine their searches in particular ways.
- Relevancy: The first keywords to choose from your keyword list are those that apply mostly to your offering. Avoid selecting the keywords that feature the highest search volume first.
- Search volume: After giving priority to relevant keywords, you can now come to keywords based on search volume and the number of competitors using exact or similar keywords. You would prefer to go for most relevant highest volume phrases, that probably feature the lowest competition.
- Analytics: Ensure that you look at your web analytics if you have a website. Check the conversion rate for each keyword. Determine the phrases with greatest time on page, and the ones with the lowest bounce rate.
- Implementation: If you are embarking on organic SEO, apply the keywords chosen for this purpose to the webpages that are most relevant and employ them in the visible text. Use the keywords or phrases in your visible text and titles for articles, social media campaign, as well as blogging.
Taking advantage of these powerful tips would help you achieve outstanding result with your SEO efforts.
