KEYWORD RESEARCH
Finding those profit-driving keywords for your business website

  • Discover the topics that your target audience really cares about
  • Indentify your online competitors and check out their weak spots
  • Align your content with the search intent of your target audience 
  • Produce a strategic list of keyword phrases for your online content
  • Generate ideas and angles for your content marketing strategy

Help prospects find your business website

Are your major landing pages languishing on page 5 or even page 50 or 150 of Google's search results? If so, your chances of being found by prospective customers are pretty much zero. Online searchers rarely go beyond page one or two of a major search engine's results.  And that means your website needs to be optimized for search engines. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the methodology that ensures the visibility of your website's content in search engines' organic results pages (SERPs). It comprises a host of on-page and off-page techniques, from building a strong site architecture and providing clear navigation to publishing relevant, helpful articles on topics your customers care about.

Using keywords based on popular search queries to create your content is an essential on-page technique. A technique that requires effective keyword research. 

Use keyword research to reach your audience

Keyword research is an essential part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If your web pages don’t contain the keywords and phrases that people use to search for your product or service, they're not going to rank well with Google and other major search engines. 

Make sure prospective customers can find your website by using the same search terms they do. More importantly, make sure those terms are the ones most likely to engage your visitors and lead to a sale. By investing a little in effective keyword research, you'll gain a lot with better SERP results and more opportunities for conversion. 

What is effective keyword research?

Well, it's not about finding the words and phrases that simply drive traffic to your website. Rather, it's about finding the words and phrases that are most likely to lead to a sale (known as conversion optimization). Why is that? Because Google's algorithms notice if your site's visitors leave your site too quickly. 

A high bounce rate says you're not providing useful content, and that can damage your site's ranking. Understanding the searchers' intent is fundamental to SEO keyword analysis. It shows you understand your market and helps you offer content that serves searchers and builds your brand.

Ann Smarty

“Neither keyword research nor SEO are going anywhere. They are evolving and maturing, yes, but certainly not dying.” 

Brand Manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas, founder of MyBlogU.com and co-founder of Viral Content Buzz

Keyword phrases that encourage searchers to click

Keyword research relies on a good understanding of your product or service and your customers, including their pain points and the topics they’re interested in. That's always my starting point when I do any type of keyword analysis for my clients. 

Then it's a case of finding those keywords that will help you build brand awareness, generate leads and convert clicks into sales. Concentrate on body keywords (2-3 word phrases) and long-tail keywords (4+ word phrases). Head keywords (single-word terms) aren’t so useful because they’re too competitive and don’t convert well.

Targeting searchers with body and long-tail keywords

Body keywords usually have the right balance between search volume and competitiveness. In other words, they’re not obscure because enough people are using these search terms, but fewer marketers are using these terms in their ads compared to single-word terms.

Long-tail keywords can be the easiest to rank for because they’re the least competitive, but their search volume is typically much lower than body keywords, so your advertising reach is limited. Having said that, visitors who find your website using long-tail keywords may be more likely to make a purchase. If you're a small business competing against big brands, it's those longer, specific phrases that you should be incorporating into your copy.

Long-tail keywords reach a more targeted audience for less money & effort

The usefulness & limitations of keyword research

Ultimately, the popularity and competitiveness of a keyword will depend on your market and industry. The more competitive it is, the more time and effort you need to put into achieving top rankings. What’s more, keywords alone are not enough to guarantee a good ranking for your website. There are many technical and creative elements to SEO, and these can’t be ignored.

However, keyword research is crucial if you want to drive more traffic to your website and generate more leads.
It gives you a competitive advantage, and supports your overall search marketing efforts. Without it,
your website is invisible.

Keyword research as part of my SEO copywriting service

As an SEO copywriter, I find the keywords and phrases essential to a website's visibility, and then weave them strategically and naturally into the copy I write. Knowing how and where to place keywords on a web page is just as important as knowing which phrases will encourage searchers to click and act.

The analysis that I do is part and parcel of my SEO content optimization service. In other words, I don't offer a separate keyword research service.  Instead, I include keyword analysis in my SEO writing projects, unless you can provide a list of suitable query phrases underpinned by search data. This approach gives you the best results because it enables me to:

  • find the topics your customers care about (what you should be targeting)
  • see what your competition is doing (you need to do better they they are)
  • select the exact match phrase (to put in your page title and first paragraph) 
  • choose other keywords and phrases (to add naturally throughout the copy) 
  • create question-oriented subheadings (because that's how people search)
  • improve meta titles and snippets (with keywords and benefit statements)
  • suggest content ideas to boost rankings (based on popular search queries)

Need to improve your SERP results? I can give your online content the SEO attention it deserves so that customers can find your website with ease, blog posts to white papers and marketing videos. And it all starts with keyword research.

Help your customers find your business online by using the right keywords 

Tell me your keyword research and SEO copywriting needs by emailing me at [email protected] or calling me on 360-525-8277.

Once I have a clear idea of the size and complexity of your project, I can send you a customized quote.

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