Whittling down the key words
Here is where you are going to need a real strategy, and a good sense of your overall marketing plan. Even if you are working with a consultant, you need to have a hand in this process. You are the expert on your business, and in the end, only you know the real relevance of key words to your web site.
Click on this link to see a chart that Joe Shmo put together after looking up his key words in Overture, Yahoo’s Search Marketing Tool. Also, next to the keywords is the price that the top bidder paid to be number one on Yahoo. The price is not important, it is really just an indicator of how competitive each key word is.
The key words are listed by popularity.
What are we to make of these numbers? When choosing keywords, the objective is to strike a balance between key words that are the most relevant to your site and key words that will bring traffic. Remember, traffic in itself isn’t the goal. You want the right people to come to your site, the ones who will call you or buy from you.
In Joe Shmo’s case, he may be tempted by the most popular key word, Home Improvement. It is fairly competitive, but it does accurately describe what he does. However, home improvement is a pretty general term. It may be a web searcher who wants to retile their floor or someone who is looking for the HGTV network. He crosses this off the list.
Contractor is the most competitive, and it does describe Joe, but it is still a pretty general term. He rules it out.
Nurseries seems promising. It is not terribly competitive, and there are a lot searches. However, a nursery can also be a plant nursery, and for sure, a lot of those web users are looking for a place to buy plants.
House painter and house painting are both pretty competitive words, but they exactly describe Joe’s business. If coupled with geo targeting, it may be worth taking on the competition. After all, someone looking for House Painting, Boston, probably wants their house painted in Boston. He chooses these two keywords.
Another promising key word is Nursery Mural. It is not one of the most heavily searched terms. But, there is a good chance that a searcher looking for Nursery Murals wants their child’s room painted. Geo targeting is important here too.
Not surprisingly, no one is looking for Joe Shmo House Painting. However, you will want to add your company’s name to the list of key words. This is for the customer who knows your name, but not your web address.
Click on this link to see a chart that Joe Shmo put together after looking up his key words in Overture, Yahoo’s Search Marketing Tool. Also, next to the keywords is the price that the top bidder paid to be number one on Yahoo. The price is not important, it is really just an indicator of how competitive each key word is.
The key words are listed by popularity.
What are we to make of these numbers? When choosing keywords, the objective is to strike a balance between key words that are the most relevant to your site and key words that will bring traffic. Remember, traffic in itself isn’t the goal. You want the right people to come to your site, the ones who will call you or buy from you.
In Joe Shmo’s case, he may be tempted by the most popular key word, Home Improvement. It is fairly competitive, but it does accurately describe what he does. However, home improvement is a pretty general term. It may be a web searcher who wants to retile their floor or someone who is looking for the HGTV network. He crosses this off the list.
Contractor is the most competitive, and it does describe Joe, but it is still a pretty general term. He rules it out.
Nurseries seems promising. It is not terribly competitive, and there are a lot searches. However, a nursery can also be a plant nursery, and for sure, a lot of those web users are looking for a place to buy plants.
House painter and house painting are both pretty competitive words, but they exactly describe Joe’s business. If coupled with geo targeting, it may be worth taking on the competition. After all, someone looking for House Painting, Boston, probably wants their house painted in Boston. He chooses these two keywords.
Another promising key word is Nursery Mural. It is not one of the most heavily searched terms. But, there is a good chance that a searcher looking for Nursery Murals wants their child’s room painted. Geo targeting is important here too.
Not surprisingly, no one is looking for Joe Shmo House Painting. However, you will want to add your company’s name to the list of key words. This is for the customer who knows your name, but not your web address.
posted by googiebaba at 6:53 AM
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