So, you know what your prospective customers search for when looking for your products or services? Do you? Get it wrong and your website marketing will be in vain, get it right and you signpost prospective clients straight to your door.So why do we get it wrong?
When a client comes to me and we start to discuss keywords and keyword phrases, they automatically assume they know what they should be because, quite rightly, they know their own business inside out. But that is
key, their prospective clients do NOT know their business inside out, and so therefore do not have same understanding of what things are called, and what they can do. You need to step outside of your business and look at it through eyes of a customer, better still, ask them.
KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keyword research is a vital part of website marketing. This exercise should be performed prior website content being written. It is through this exercise, that we are able to find out exactly how many surfers searched for which keywords and phrases and how many other web pages are competing for same phrase. In short term it is not a sensible idea to target one word keywords that have over 200,000 pages competing for them. In long term, maybe but if you want to get your website seen and start to build up some traffic, then you need to concentrate on 2-3 keyword phrases that have less than 200,000 pages competing for them.
THE PROCESS
Step 1- Preliminary keyword list
The client needs to produce a list of keywords that they feel are applicable to their business. Keywords can also be lifted from any company literature. It is also useful if client can tell website marketing consultant who their main competitors are, and their web addresses. You need to think ‘outside of box’ and also think laterally.
Step 2 – What keywords are searched for
Armed with a list of keywords, website marketing consultant should now perform research with a tool such as WordTracker™ to ascertain:
•Whether these listed keywords are in fact being searched for •What other related keywords are also being searched for •Whether there are any synonyms that are relevant and being searched for •How many other web pages are competing for same keyword phrases
