Tips for Selecting Effective Keywords for your Business

Keywords and phrases are just one part of an effective search engine optimization (SEO) plan, but an important one at that. When your potential customers search for something on Google, it’s important for your website to be one of the top results of their search. One of the many ways companies optimize their webpages for search engines is by assigning keywords to certain pages, therefore choosing the right keywords can be hugely important.

But keywords aren’t just about your search engine rankings. At their core, keywords are an essential tool for solidifying your overall message and presenting your products or services to customers. Identifying important keywords for your business should be simple. Just ask yourself what words or phrases most effectively and succinctly describe your business and what you offer to potential customers or clients.

We’ve provided some ideas to keep in mind when you are choosing which keywords to focus on when building your search engine marketing:

Your Keywords can be Phrases

The term “keyword” is itself can be a bit of a misnomer. Perhaps a more accurate term would be “keyphrase” since keywords don’t have to be a single word. In fact, they rarely are, so keep that in mind when you are researching and considering potential keywords.

Think Locally

By using region-specific keywords, you can let search engines know where your business is located and help steer potential customers in your area towards your business. Adding your city and state to your keyword choices will help tell the important search engines that you serve a localized market.

Be Specific, but not Too Specific

You want to use specific terms that help your page stand out amongst the crowd, but you also don’t want to be so specific that common searches don’t pick up on your keywords. This can be a tricky thing to balance. The more specific your keyword is, the less competition there will be. Conversely, the more specific your keyword is, the fewer people there are actually searching for that term.

Use the Tool Available to You

Google has a number of helpful tools that make it easy to dig in to keyword research. Their Keyword Planner tool is a great place to start. Additionally, Google Trends allows you to enter multiple keywords and filter by location, search history, and category. Once your info is entered, it will give you results that show how much interest there is around certain keywords and other helpful info. There is also the Keyword Competitive Index (KCI) which measures the relationship between demand and competition around certain keywords. These are just a few of the many tools available to you and we suggest casting a wide net when seeking assistance with potential keywords.

So there you have it. At the end of the day, you’ll want to pick the keywords that are relevant to what you offer, popular enough that they’ll get noticed, but not so competitive that you can’t rank well for them. If you’re having trouble with your search engine marketing, feel free to contact the experts at McCauley Marketing Services. We will work with you to evaluate keywords and find those that best fit your website.