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The marketing potential of our site, is largely influenced by the proper selection of keywords for which we want to position ourselves. However, this is a matter that depends on many factors – the industry, our competition, and sometimes even the time of year. That’s why choosing keywords on our own can overwhelm us. Although there are many tools that can help us choose keywords (the so-called keyword planner), often the best option is to take help from a professional marketing agency.
Keyword analysis – why is choosing the right keywords so important?
We need to be aware that most of the traffic to our website is through the keywords that users type into Google search. Of course, some people will hear about our company from friends or other sources, but for the most part we have to rely precisely on people finding our site on their own.
This is why it is such an important aspect that our site “speaks the same language” as our potential customers. We need to understand how users search for the products or services we offer. In this way, we have a chance to get ahead of the competition.
Keywords are the backbone of all SEO efforts, so it’s worth spending time and money to get them right.
How to choose keywords?
Choose keywords that users are searching for online
This seems like the most obvious advice, but it is a good starting point. Consider what a user will type into Google when looking for a product in your industry. Mountain bike, red stilettos, toys for girls? Of course, purchasing is not the only intention behind typing a keyword into the Google bar. Maybe users are looking for an answer to their question or want to get to a specific site? Proper selection of key phrases must start with answering these questions.
The right keywords – think like a potential customer
Make the content on your website directly responsive to the inquiry of potential customers – you increase the chance that it is your site that users will come to. It all boils down to one recommendation – when planning your keyword list, think like a user who is about to come to your website specifically.
Keyword selection – check the competitiveness of keywords
When we talk about keyword competitiveness, we mean the degree of difficulty involved in positioning for a particular phrase. It consists of several factors:
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average number of searches for a keyword
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nature of our industry
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number of results for a given keyword
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The nature of the pages displayed when a keyword is typed into a search engine.
Speaking of competitors, it’s worth checking what keyword list they use to position the same products or services. Analyzing what keyword phrases our competitors are positioning for will help us choose. We can go in two directions: positioning for the same keyword suggestions, or the opposite: if our strong competitor has good results with a given key phrase, competing with him may not be worth the effort. Then it makes sense to focus on a different group of key phrases that he does not use.
Keyword lists – evaluate the business potential of a phrase
The business potential of a key phrase is nothing more than its relevance to your business or products. It doesn’t matter how high a keyword ranks – if it’s not directly related to your industry and what you offer on the site, it won’t do its job. Example: you run a dress store and want to position for the phrase “green dresses”, but after analysis it turns out that…in your offer you do not have dresses in this color!
The higher the business value of the keywords typed into the search bar, the more likely they are to attract customers to our site. Therefore, let’s not go for quantity and not always be guided by what our competitors are doing, and let’s analyze more what relationship a phrase has with specific parts of our site.
Keywords in an advertising campaign – how to choose keywords?
Advertising campaigns are a unique time for our site, which may require slightly different SEO. Going back to the example of dresses – maybe we want to create a special campaign for the Christmas and New Year’s Eve period. This will, of course, mean other keyword suggestions. Although on a daily basis we position our store for general keywords like maxi dresses or summer dresses, during this period we need to choose new keywords: for example, dresses for Christmas, New Year’s Eve dresses, sequined dresses.
This shows us the importance of seasonality of keywords – it is not enough to choose them once and expect results all year round. You need to constantly select new keywords that meet the current needs of potential customers.
Keyword planner – is it worth using it?
Nowadays, we have many keyword planning tools available, and many of them are also free. Even Google’s search engine has such a planner. However, it has a major drawback. After typing in a given keyword phrase, we see only ranges of the number of searches. Why is there a downside? These ranges can be very large – from 10,000 to 100,000, for example.
Since we can’t see the actual monthly number of searches, we can’t choose which keywords are most relevant to us – one might get 20,000 monthly searches and another might get 80,000, for example, so the choice will be random. This makes keyword competitiveness impossible to assess.
Other planners will show us more accurate data, but we still won’t see how the data changes by season, for example, which can be very important for some industries. Therefore, while these are certainly helpful tools, if you want to achieve maximum SEO results, it is better to use the expertise of professionals.
How to choose keywords – use the services of a marketing agency
Although nowadays we can find a lot of information about keywords, as well as tools to help us choose them, nothing will bring us as much results as the help of specialists for whom SEO is an everyday thing. It is their experience that will allow us to use the full potential that the keyword list has.
Not only do they know how to use all the helpful tools and planners, but they also know the current trends in SEO and the requirements of Google’s algorithm. They will replace the best keyword planner. Since keywords in SEO are the basis of all activities, it is not worth saving in this aspect.
