You can greatly increase your chances of success if you optimize your web pages for the right keywords. But before you can begin, you need to have an objective, such as increasing brand awareness by ten percent over the next quarter. The next step is to decide how you’re going to accomplish this. We don’t want to just arbitrarily select some keywords and start writing page content.
It’s important to think from our target customer’s perspective. I like to visualize a real person sitting behind the keyboard. How does this person think? What keywords would they use to search for my product or service? One free tool that can provide valuable insite into the minds of web users is Search Hippo’s live query view. It shows you the last 15 search queries entered. After a while you should start to see patterns in the way people search for things.
A quick note of caution when using automated tools: There have been many helpful application developed, like Google Trends, but there’s no substitute for human intelligence. I was reminded of this recently when my GPS suggested I make a right-turn off a mountain side. Likewise, I’ve seen Google AdWords come up with some really strange recommendations, so be sure to use discretion.
Once you’ve short-listed your keyword choices (I recommend using a spreadsheet to keep track of them), go to Google, Yahoo, and Bing and perform a search on each key phrase to verify the results are relevant to your campaign objectives. Perhaps you want to be the only one showing up for that keyword, perhaps not. The Google AdWords keyword tool can give you estimates for yearly and month search volume.
Here are the main things to keep in mind when selecting keywords and writing content:
- It’s not always advantageous to select top-performing keywords. Sometimes everyone is fighting for one or two keywords while ignoring other high-quality keywords that simply have less search volume. This opens up an opportunity to be the big fish in a small pond. Just because a lot of people are searching for something, doesn’t mean they’re buying.
- Adding your city or some other noun/adjective creates a long-tail keyword. As people progress through the sales funnel, their search strategies change from broad, such as “car dealers”, to specific, i.e. “best car dealer in Langley BC”.
- Don’t use obscure industry jargon in your keywords, no matter how technically correct it is. If your customers don’t use “proper” terminology, then you should avoid it too. For example, drivers will more likely search for “gas prices” than “petrolium fuel prices”.
- Optimize your page around one or two keywords. Make sure they’re in the title, description and main headings. The closer your keywords are to the top of the page, the better. But don’t overdo it!
- Aim for at least 350 words with 3 to 4 percent keyword density. No higher. If the keyword to content ratio is too high, it’s considered keyword stuffing and can get your page penalized by the search engines.
- If your page contains more than one topic, consider breaking it up into multiple pages. This will allow you to take advantage of more keywords and will ensure that your message stays on-topic and has the strongest impact possible.
Choosing keywords is a bit of an art form, and this is by no means a exhaustive discussion on keyword selection. There are times when you’ll need to employ different methods, or even break the rules. Nevertheless, these tips should lay the groundwork necessary to begin optimizing your pages for increased search engine exposure.