Keyword Analysis - the Key to Online Business Success

Is your marketing plan driving business to your competitor’s websites?  Is your company’s website performing as well as it possibly can? How’s your conversion rate?

Enter Keyword Analysis.

With keywords playing such a dominant role in driving consumers to websites, you need to compete strongly. If you are not competing strongly, your business is losing a significant amount of money.

Internet marketing is crucial for businesses that operate exclusively online, as well as for more traditional, bricks-and-mortar businesses. Search engines dominate the Internet, forcing businesses to compete for online rankings. So, understanding the importance of keywords and how to select the best ones for your business will not only determine your company’s online search engine ranking, but the quantity and quality of traffic driven to your website.

Keywords and Business Revenues – Working Hand In Hand

The keywords used in the both the static and dynamic content on your website and in your online marketing efforts will determine the quantity and quality of the traffic being driven to your website.

Static content refers to the web pages and content of your company’s page titles, and other information that rarely change such as the Meta tags for your website.  

Conversely, dynamic content refers to the content that changes or is updated regularly, such as blog posts, articles, forum postings, and advertisements that you utilize as part of your company’s online marketing efforts.

Choosing Keywords – Your Bread and Butter

The keywords that you use in all of your company’s content will affect your search engine rankings, and ultimately your website’s traffic.  

Earlier schools of thought taught that choosing general keywords that best related to your target market was the best way to appeal to the largest number of visitors; thereby garnering more traffic – and more sales – as a result.

This is no longer true, at least for some businesses.

For some businesses, targeting long tail keywords brings the best results, especially in terms of conversion rates.  Long tail keywords help you more effectively target groups of customers and out-convert the competition.  Consider this example:

You have a juice bar in San Diego, California.  Your first list of keywords might look like this:

·         Juice Bars California

·         San Diego Juice Bars

·         West Coast Juice Bars

However, you may find that you have lots of competition for these search terms, as they are quite general and non-specific.

The long tail keyword strategy incorporates terms that a smaller group of users (and potential customers) is likely to type into the search box.  Your long tail list might look something like this:

·         List of juice bars in San Diego California

·         Cheap juice bars on the west coast

·         The best juice bars in the San Diego area

By using the long tail keyword strategy, your website’s content will attract visitors actively searching for the above information, and that are ready to buy now; as a result, your conversion rate will dramatically increase.

The best way to become accurate in your keyword selections is to ask for help. Some of the most effective market sizing and keyword suggestion tools are Overture, Google, WordTracker and Ask.com. These tools will be able to give you a list of relevant long tail keywords for your business for little to no cost.

Synonyms

In order to leverage the power of keywords, you will need to develop a comprehensive list of keywords for your business. There are online and software keyword tools that you can use as well as manual exercises to help you choose the best keywords for your business.

Even if you choose to use a keyword tool, understanding the manual process of keyword analysis is important to drive the best results possible. For example, if you own a travel business in Houston, TX; here are some possible keywords to consider:

·         Travel company Houston

·         Houston Travel Company

·         Houston Travel Services

·         Houston TX Travel Services

Again, using general keywords may appeal to the widest audience possible, but probably won’t give you the results (in $$$) that you are after due to the amount of competition.

As you brainstorm possibilities, consider any combination of relevant words that someone may type into the search engine to locate your type of business.

Use as many synonyms, abbreviations and word combinations that you can think of.  You will likely develop an extensive list of keywords, but it is a great place to start your marketing campaign as they will all have some relevance to your business’ products and services.

Understanding keywords is crucial in the development and execution of your online marketing strategy.  Use the tips in this article, and you’ll be well on your way to online marketing success