Keywords are what they suggest on the tin – key or VIP words that will appear in a search ranking to drive web traffic to your site. The benefit of incorporating keywords into your website content is two pronged – they will encouragemore traffic to visit your website and they will enable you to assess and better understand how your customers search for your type of business. The more knowledge you have, the better you can target your customers. Conducted properly, keyword research can become one of your lowest marketing investments that delivers the highest ROI but you have to pay attention. If you don’t have the time to devote to the task, get someone who knows how it all works.

With keyword search, the first task is to ensure the words you are choosing as your key words are relevant to your content so that when customers find you, they will also find the information they are expecting to find. Once you have the chosen word or words that you think best suit you, you need to test them. Best way to do this is to use them in a search. Type them into a search engine browser and see what comes up. Note how many paid for ads (the ones that run down the right hand side or appear in a shaded area at the very top of a page) appear and also how many of your competitors appear? If there are a lot then chances are that the words you have chosen are very popular and therefore may be perceived to be expensive. This could be because it is a good conversion prone word or that itis not a specific enough word to separate you from the rest of your competitors. It is important to be able to differentiate between the two.A most basic example is to think of shoes. If you sell brown shoes, are you going to choose just the word “shoes” to advertise yourself or are the words “Brown shoes” more likely to produce visitors that will actually buy your shoes? Given the amount of people selling shoes, it is highly likely that using that the keyword “shoes” will be costly and not deliver you the customer traffic you would want. Being more specific with “brown shoes” should deliver you exactly what you need – not the biggest volume of customers but likely buying ones.

The easiest way to test your chosen key word to ensure that what you are using is working best is to buy a sample Google Adword and set it as an “exact match”. You can then test this word over a set number of clicks, say 300, to see how it works for you. This is done by pointing traffic that clicks on your word to the webpage that contains the purchased keyword and analysing the results. It could take a number of attempts before you find the right words that will work best for you.

It is a complex process that takes time and you need to know what to look for when working with keywords. If you can’t differentiate between popular search words that are appealing to browsers generally and keywords or phrases that are specifically targeting buying customers then you need help! Up to 70% of internet searches use permutations of word strings, known as longtail keywords.These tend to be used by people who are further along the buying/conversion cycle and being more specific with their search terms.

To be successful with keyword searches you need to understand the demand for a keyword term or phrase and know what level of work is required in using it to achieve the web ranking desired – especially if you are up against major brands that may be hogging the rankings that you want! Best advice that can be given is if you want to get ahead, get an expert. Successful negotiation through the keyword minefield and correct placement of words and phrases will ensure that your website is an effective sales tool. Staying on top of search habits, spotting when trends are changing, etc. is all part of being marketing savvy with your business. In this digital age, investing in some professional help will most certainly pay dividends and given the speed of technological advances, keep you at the forefront.

Contact:
Creative SEO Limited
46 Broadsands Rd
Paignton, Devon, UK
Zip: TQ4 6HH
Tel: 08454 680221
http://www.creative-seo.co.uk/