One readily understands that relevant keywords are crucial to getting targeted hits. Both for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and pay-per-click ads.  But how does one construct a list of keywords that are likely to increase the number of interested web surfers?

Succeeding with Keywords and Keyphrases

Define your industry niche or market segment more precisely.  If you sell how-to books, for instance, “books” is simply too broad.  You are going to get lost amongst precisely 479 million search engine results concerning books.  Instead, you may want to try “Home Improvement How-to’s,” or “Home Improvement Books” (just 59,300 rivals this time, and down drastically to 2,000 when limited to publishers or booksellers in the U.K.).  Obviously, Net-savvy searchers often have a specific item in mind and they want to be taken directly to it.

Get into the Minds of Your Customers

Take a cue from the Natural Language Processing experts and ponder how the unsophisticated shopper might phrase a search in everyday language.  Does he or she say, “scientific nutrient-dense additive-free pet food range” or “best natural dog food”?  At some time in your brainstorming process, invite folks who are not too close to your company.  Outsider ideas can be valuable.

Free Web Marketing AppraisalYou may be current on industry lingo but customers have a world of their own.  So what if you are convinced your industry vertical is properly defined by the keyword phrase “outsourcing service provider”.  Potential clients might have synonyms in mind: “contact center”, “call center”, “telemarketing”, “CRM”, or “inbound/outbound sales provider”.  By all means, include all these in your keyword list.

What Works for the Competition?

Try to find out what keywords rival websites use by simply doing a Google search for potential words or phrases and see if their sites come up. You might like to test if some of these keywords (that you are not currently using) work for you as well.

Tools and Aids

Use a “Keyword Density SEO Tool” (Hint: Do a Google search) to analyse your web pages and see if you are achieving a a minimum keyword density of 4% (the number of times relevant keywords appear on a web page in relation to the total number of words on that page).  Google and Yahoo Search Marketing also offer tools that help determine the type of keywords you might like to use for SEO and pay-per-click campaigns.

Branding and Geo-marketing

Strengthen the most-searched keyword phrases with your brand name and plug it in relevant places – page titles, headlines, secondary headers, section headers, “reasons why” lists, comment section.  Repeat the process in every page that suits.

 

And if local search is your ballgame, construct a supplemental list of key phrases that include the city, county or state you target for your real estate business, retail chain, home service business, student service bureau, or tour guide service.

Your newfound awareness of keyword and keyphrases should help not only your optimisation efforts. It will also help develop a keyword bidding strategy that takes take you closer to a rightful spot among the top three in the paid search ad position.

Need Help?

Talk to a Melbourne IT eBusiness Consultant by calling us on 1300 132 838.

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Dominique is an online marketing professional working in the corporate marketing team at Melbourne IT. Her passion is the creation and implementation of integrated marketing campaigns with a strong digital focus. Currently she is obsessed following the Twitter trend of a TV show and watching at the same time #youshouldtryit.