So you’ve decided to kick of (or completely rebuild) your online marketing efforts. Awesome, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. And if you’re not generating business from the web, you definitely have a problem.
Keyword research is crucial to every successful online marketing campaign. That’s because keywords are the backbone of your Search Engine Optimization. You need to drive traffic to your site from the organic search results. And the only way to do that is to know what your customers are doing to search for your products and services on Google, Bing and all over the web. Effective keyword research will help you locate your target market, reach new customers, and speak directly to them and convert more sales.
Here’s a great guide on how to do keyword research at the start of your Internet marketing campaign.
Keyword Research
Basically if you expect customers to find you online they aren’t going to be searching for your company name. They’ll be searching for your services using keywords.
These keywords are words used to describe your service/product. Words that customers put into search engines when they’re looking for YOU. Do you know what you keywords are? Some good ways to find them are by searching your field/product/service and seeing what results come up. These results may show you new keywords that apply to your business.
There are five questions that will help you discover keywords that your clients use.
1. How would you describe your site?
2. Why/How are you better than your competitor?
3. What products are similar to yours but not competitors?
4. What is your flagship product?
5. What are your most important keywords?
There are three things to remember when researching keywords.
First, when researching keywords it’s important to research any words or categories you don’t understand that come up in your search. If it matters to your company and you don’t know it; you’re a step behind your competitor. You should also make sure that the results actually pertain to your company. If the search results don’t convert searchers into unique and interested visitors it’s a waste of time. Lastly, you should try to optimize your keywords around current trends. The easiest way to do this is by using Google’s advanced search options located in the left column of your search results.
Conversion
Knowing and using keywords is great but unless you can track how effective they are its worth squat. Tracking is great but make sure your using data that can actually help you target your audience better. Here’s what you should be looking at:
Organic visitors – How many visitors do you get from search engines for each keyword?
Exact match search – What volume of visitors on your page come from exact matches of your keywords? The closer you are to hitting your target market the higher the number.
Phrase match – Basically the same as exact match search but instead of single keywords were talking phrases.
Keyword diversity – Make sure you have a good number of keywords that are both relevant and high in search volume. Just don’t overdo it. What do you do if your relevant keywords are low in search volume? Re-evaluate your keywords.
This two-step process of researching and tracking keywords will help you build an effective internet marketing plan utilizing keywords that suit your company’s needs and addresses your clients. Ultimately increasing your traffic and boost your revenue.
Granted this may take a good amount of time but, as my dad always told me, it’s always better to do it once and do it right than cut corners or rush and have to do it over again.