Choosing Keywords

Search Engine Optimization is very important to drive traffic to your website, thereby boosting your viewership and in turn your sales.  However, sometimes we don’t rank high on the search engines even when we think that we’re doing everything right.  That’s when reassessing your keywords, and thus optimized content, can make all the difference.  When choosing keywords it is essential to take into consideration the size of your business and your target market. If you have a smaller company it is more beneficial to chose keywords that are not as popular but are more specific to what your company provides.  The most popular search terms will be dominated by the large companies that can afford to pay for higher rankings for those sought after keywords.  It is in your best interest, if you are a smaller company, to pay for high rankings on terms that are more likely to produce conversions.  This reduces the amount of money you spend on pay per click rankings and increases the amount of viewers who turn into paying customers. By taking your target market into consideration when creating your keywords you can predict what keywords will help your site more than others.  Age is a major factor in the way someone will use the internet.  If your target market is baby boomers the structure of your terms and the terms themselves will definitely be different than if your target market is teenagers.  Different age groups have a different familiarity with computers and the Internet.  For example, baby boomers lived the majority of their lives without the vast web of information available to them through the Internet, they may feel awkward on the internet and will most likely keep their searches simple.  In comparison, high school students have lived with the wide use of the Internet their whole lives, or at least the parts they can remember, and will therefore have a familiarity with the Internet, computer, and search engines.  Their searches will be more detailed and they will most likely know what they’re looking for and what to search for to ensure they do not have to browse more than the first page of results. In conjunction with these two simple guidelines, there are many mistakes that companies make when creating their list of search terms.  All of these mistakes can be avoided if you know what they are.  SearchEngineLand’s Christine Churchill provides a great quick resource on avoiding the common keyword pitfalls:

• Targeting keywords that people never use. Don’t use industry jargon that customers will never enter into a search box. (An important aside: She notes that business should be aware that some SEO firms purposely select “off-the-wall keyword phrases so they can guarantee rankings on those phrases. ” Also, be wary of any SEO firm that guarantees anything.)
• Confusing keyword popularity with keyword appropriateness. For a smaller business, it makes more sense, she writes, to “pursue more focused, more relevant terms that are less popular, but be better choices because they convert better.”
• Not considering user intent in keyword selection, selecting single word keywords, and keyword misalignment.
• Not considering the competition. It’s especially important for smaller businesses to consider what Churchill calls “the competitive landscape” of that phrase on the Web.
• Failing to periodically review keywords.
• Not allocating enough resources and time to perform good keyword research.

RemedyOne encourages anyone trying to market themselves or their business online avoid these pitfalls to help them rank better on the search engines and win more business.