Keywords

Without the right keywords, nothing else matters. The trick with keyword selection is not what most people think, which is to use the most popular words in your category. Instead you want your keywords and keyword phrases to be focused on the exact words your prospective customers are most likely to use.

Here’s an example to illustrate the point:

Words like cars and vehicles are just popular to pursue. Typing these into a search at Lycos produses results something like this: a search for cars gave me more than 6 million pages…and for vehicles more than 5 millions. It would be difficult to get to the top using these keywords, although given time, not impossible.

But it’s better to be smart than ambitious. You’re much better off going after a less popular, more specific keyword phrase such as “used car price”. This would attract people looking for a specific keyword, which is more closely related to your actual product or service. So when someone finds you with one of these highly specific keywords, they’re much more likely to buy form you.

Choosing the wrong keyword - say “car buying advice”, whilst catching the small number that do use it as a search keyword, would reduce the number of potential hits dramatically. In this case “car buying guide” and “car loan” have every little competition but quite a lot of searches.

Another point to be aware of can be demonstrated by looking at a recent example. A client sold Siemens Domestic Appliances, in his innocence they were insisting of being optimised for “Siemens”. Whilst the word “Siemens” is a vary popular word, the fact that most “Siemens” searches are mobile phone related only goes to confirm the need to research properly. If indeed the site had been optimised for the word “Siemens” not only would have the project have been significantly more expensive, but it would not have fulfilled the user experience resulting in the next click being on the back button.

At this point you will no doubt have an idea as what keywords are appropriate to your site. But before you adopt these keywords it would be preferable to ensure the words are actually used in searches, and then assess how achievable they are.

January 10, 2008 | Filed Under SEO