Keyword Research – The Right Search Terms Or Keywords Benefits SEO.
There are keywords for show and search terms for dough. Knowing which keywords to use and optimise, as part of your SEO plan, will determine how many visitors you will be seen by. There’s little point ranking first, on the first page of search engine results for a search term very few people actually search for.
Thinking IT has access to tools that show how many people search specific keywords, wanting to find products and services your business has.
Targeting the right type of customers is also more important than attracting many more of the wrong type, even though you end up with a lot of enquiry, it will cost you time and money, if you’re not able to help them.
The following list outlines the steps for keyword research to target the right keywords with SEO:
- Who Are Your Customers?
- How Much is A Keyword Worth?
- Competitors Ranking For Keywords
- Local Search Keywords
- Long Tail Keywords
Customers Profile
Knowing what customers a business wants to attract is important for finding the right keywords to rank high through SEO.
Let’s look at a finance broker as an example.
Keywords like loans and finance are extremely competitive and are searched by a huge amount of people looking for many types of loan products.
The broker does not offer home loan products, specialising in personal loans and car loans. More specific keywords including personal loans and car loans are going to be therefore a better choice.
The broker further specialises in organising loans for people with a bad credit history. Keywords such as bad credit car loans, second chance car finance and bad credit personal loans will attract that specific type of customer.
Lastly, let’s add the relevance of local search, as the broker based in the city and only wants to service Adelaide metropolitan suburbs we can look at search terms like bad credit car loans adelaide, car finance adelaide bad credit and second chance car finance adelaide.
Using local SEO to target the last group of keywords will benefit the broker’s business far better than the first group because we are targeting the specific type of customer they are looking for, the cost of SEO will be far cheaper too.
Keywords Value
When looking at a keywords value, keyword research is vital in determining the benefit derived from targeting that keyword with SEO. The broader, or less specific a keyword is, the greater the number of people use it, the more competitive it is and the amount of work involved to have your website page rank at the top of search engine result pages (SERP) will cost more, so we need to look at the return on investment (ROI) of targeting keywords. Value for money SEO is a focus at Thinking IT, which is why keyword research needs to target your specific needs, so you get the biggest bang for your SEO buck.
What Keywords Does Your Competition Rank High For?
Knowing which of your competitors uses the chosen keywords you wish to rank high for is relevant in knowing what SEO work is required to rank higher than them in SERP’s. Keyword research also gives you an insight to keywords your competitors are not using, allowing you to gain dominance quickly.
Keywords Specific To geographic Location
Local SEO is becoming more important and relevant to small Adelaide businesses. If you’re a shop front business operating in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, it is more advantageous to target customers living North of Adelaide, that are local, than targeting customers that live over an hour away, where they may pass similar types of businesses on the drive to you.
Similarly, if you offer services requiring you to drive to customers homes, you will want to service customers local to your office.
Knowing what customers searching for local businesses or services use as keywords, local SEO, is therefore an important part of your overall SEO plan.
Target Specific Searches Benefits SEO Efforts
Applying SEO to long tail keywords, allows for targeting the keywords that will benefit your business the best. When looking at the customers profile above, we looked at keywords that were very specific containing 4 words for the search term. Keywords or key phrases that contain 3 or 4 words are examples of ‘long tail keywords’. When looking at your total keyword SEO strategy, it will be far more beneficial in traffic volume and SEO costs, to have the bulk of your keywords targeted with SEO to be long tail keywords. These will be keywords that specifically target the customers you are wanting, with cheaper SEO costs involved to rank higher than your competition and within the geographical location that suits you locally.
Summary
In summary, the importance of keyword research as part of a SEO plan cannot be over stated. Targeting the right keywords for your Adelaide business website with SEO, will give you the best return on your SEO investment.
