The Keyword Issue and Marketing
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"Target
the wrong keywords and all your efforts will be in vain." "How forcible are right words!" One of the most important phases of web site design (and we consider it often the most important) is choosing the right keyword phrases for your page(s). If you don't have the right keyword phrases, nothing else will make any difference, because everything else builds on using the right keyword phrases. Your keyword phrase for your home page is the Holy Grail of your success. Links and page design all depend on keyword phrases to work. Social marketing depends on those phrases. It really doesn't matter if you have the most beautiful web site in the world with animation, loads of free stuff, call to action and everything else. For most sites some 85% of the people that come to your site will try to find you by using the search engines. If you don't have the right keyword phrases used in the page design and linking and aren't using them properly, there won't be much traffic. The most common mistakes in web design involve choosing the wrong keyword phrases and not using them correctly in your page design, linking, and social networking. For this reason one of the important aspects of achieving a good position in the search engines and getting the visits to your site that result from that is choosing good keyword phrases and using them correctly in the content, design and linking of your Web pages. This is true for both search engine optimization and social media optimization. We can help you do this very objectively. Basic Keyword StrategiesBefore going too far on this, let’s define something very basic. A keyword is a word that will draw traffic to your site when used in marketing. You can use it in your titles, descriptions, tags, and in your links. Keywords are used with both search engine optimization in marketing and in social media optimization. One very basic problem is that a search on a single word, used as a keyword, will draw so many pages on the web that they will never find your pages with that word. If I use “leadership” as a keyword, for example, at the moment Google would return 139 million pages. They will never find your pages if I optimize on that. The solution is to use keyword phrases; that is, target with phrases of two or more words. To search on a phrase in a search engine you would use the exact words in the exact order of the phrase, and use the phrase to search the search engine with quotation marks, as “servant leadership”. This returns 316,000 pages at the moment. This gives me a smaller space to compete in, but is still rather large. If I search on “corporate servant leadership” (with quotation marks), I get only 94 sites returned. Now that might work, if that really is your target audience and people are using it to search the Internet. You want to choose keyword phrases that related to your customer’s needs, have a minimum of competition, and are frequently used in searching the internet. These can be defined objectively in internet marketing. You should also remember that if the search turns up a large number of competing pages for a phrase, only a small percentage of the pages have actually been optimized for the phrase. Studies have shown that about 88% of the web sites indexed in the search engines are not optimized. That means with good optimization you are only competing with 12% of the returned pages on your keyword phrase. Your goal is try to try get on the first page returned and near the top of that first page. Identify the Customer’s Need and Target that with Your Keyword PhrasesThe tendency is that if you are selling a product with a name like SuperRebuilder1 that can restore youth and rebuild body cells, the company that makes this product might try to index on the product name. It won’t work unless that name is well-branded in the market and people would actually be using that in searching. I’ve tried this with a health product that actually rebuilds cells and restores your cells (really – I tried it!). The product was not well-branded, and my sales were zero. When I changed the keyword phrases I used for the site to target rebuilding youth and cells, sales took off.As another example, suppose you dropped something of value down the drain. How can you retrieve it without a wrench or plumber? Try searching Google on "get something down the drain". Remember, searcher searches on the problem, not the solution. The keyword phrases should relate to the problem. You should find: http://www.familyhack.com/2007/08/29/drain-tip/ at the top of the search results returned. Check the site out! Niche Your Keyword PhrasesTelevision broadcasts to the user using a single ad for a large audience, of which only a few can relate to the message. Very expensive advertising. With the Internet, you can target to the needs of a specific user base and address those in depth. A car company, for example, often tries to take their television commercial, put it to some web pages, and drop these to the internet. That won’t work. The internet is a totally different media and when you are using it you need to identify the user’s needs and choose keyword phrases that target those needs specifically. A given company I know of has over sixty web sites, each of them targeting different groups of users with different keyword phrases.Watch Your CompetitionCheck your competition and see what phrases they are using. Search on phrases and see who comes up on top and how they got there.Think outside the box. Suppose you are writing a book on leadership. I would first sit down and identify leaders that I can identify. I would also identify people who have been leaders in my life. Which ones are real leaders, and which are just playing the game for greed or other motives? Which are influencers? Which have power? Those who have influence and those who have authority (power) are not necessarily the same. Who are the gatekeepers? Reach these with your message – without cost if necessary (use Twitter, Facebook, LInedin). Which are close to true leadership as you perceive it? Why? Now check out a few of their websites. How do they come up in the search engines? In the social networks? Blogs? What keyword phrases are they using? Outside the box you may find interesting stuff. For example, Ken Medema is a blind musician who leads from the music he creates. Although physically blind, he sees better than most people I know. He has been very influential in my life. Listen to his music at http://www.kenmedema.com/. Who are the thought-leaders with which you can identify? Always remember the name of the game on the internet in the new paragidm is synergy, not competition. “Yikes!” One client told me, “You want me to give away the store!” That is correct. The internet is very dynamic and fast-moving. You cannot keep information to yourself. When Reagan asked Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the wall, the wall was already falling. The internet functions as a vehicle for a new paradigm. Those that understand this and can leverage it are the true leaders today. Sharing information establishes you as a leader and gives you authority in your mission. Use Action Words as Part of Your PhrasesChoose keyword phrases that inspire action, that motivate. Remember that “get something down the drain” phrase mentioned earlier for searching? That’s something you want to do, not talk about. Now suppose you search on “get a fuel efficient car”. Would you expect that phrase to lead you to any car company? Whoops – somebody missed the boat here. There is no competition at the moment.We have multiple tools in our organization to help you objectively find the right keyword phrases for your web site and mission.
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