Kim Kelley Thompson
What are keywords?
Keywords are the words, or combinations of words (keyphrases) that cause your website to show up on search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing). They are KEY for you to understand if you want to increase traffic to your website, reach your ideal client and grow your business.
This article will walk you through keyword basics to help you reach your ideal clients. The best way to use keywords is to know the words and phrases people are entering into the search bar when looking for something online.
Once you have identified the words and phrases people are likely to use in relation to your business, you’ll want to incorporate these words and phrases into the content on your site. Adding these keywords to your blog posts isn’t enough, you’ll also want these keywords or phrases on your other pages such as: About, Services, Home etc. The key is to make certain these keywords make sense and are relevant to the content on your site.
Keyword basics – reach ideal clients with keywords and grow your business
There’s been a bit of conflicting information as to whether or not keywords are still effective in reaching your target market. The short answer YES they are. Here’s a little history, in the 1990s, search engines relied heavily on meta tags in order to distinguish keywords and determine site rankings in search results. However, this led to sites tagging relevant keywords en masse, but providing no content on the site to go along with the keywords (this became known as keyword stuffing and basically led to Spam sites).
Search engines caught on and have since changed their approach to using keywords. What this means for you is that, while you cannot merely stuff your site (on the front end and back end) with targeted keywords. The combination and placement of keywords is a viable way to get found in the search engines and tap into your ideal market. Studies have shown that using keywords effectively, in the content of a website, greatly increases the chances of the website showing up in searches!
Where you place your keywords is just as important as the keywords themselves. I see so many clients get this wrong. They’ll create a great piece of content, place it on their site, but fail to ego the extra steps to add the keywords in the back office descriptions, titles/subtitles and images. Unfortunately, all the work they put (or paid) for a great piece of content has gone to waste. It will not be anywhere near as effective without the proper placements of selected keywords.
While using keywords in the title of posts on your website, and in the description of your website, will go a long way to giving your website search engine visibility, you must know the keywords that will help you target your ideal market. Which means that you need to be clear as to who your ideal client is and what that client would be searching for online.
Clarity is the foundation and if you haven’t noticed by know it is the common thread throughout my posts. Why? Because so many businesses get this wrong – especially entrepreneurs.
Take the time to get crystal clear on your ideal client and set the foundation before you set up your website, create content, or develop products or services. You cannot set a strategy and work that strategy when you are not clear as to whether or not you are targeting the right market and if that market can afford what you have to offer. Remember the Internet is a noisy space. Information is jumping out left and right. You must have a clear intention before you even start searching for appropriate keywords to target your market.
Keyword basics – which keywords can I use to reach ideal clients?
It can be difficult at times to know which keywords will most effectively bring readers your way, but one of the best things you can do is conduct searches for the content you are planning to write. As y
ou use different keyword combinations, you will be able to figure out the words and word combinations people are most likely to use. You can try various combinations of your keywords until you find ones that will be the easiest to rank for within your market. I realize this can sound a bit overwhelming, but there is a way to streamline this process so you can found in the search engines and reach your ideal market. I created a video tutorial that will walk you through this process, and yes, it’s free: www.thehubline.com/free-training/
Studies have concluded that one of the best ways to increase your ranking in search engine searches is for others to link to your site – and the best way to make this happen is to provide valuable content! As you provide valuable content, others will link to you using the same keyword combinations you use in the content itself, (similar to Twitter hashtags) and this will help you to keep climbing higher in those ever-important search engine rankings. The goal is to appear on page 1 not 21, applying these keyword basics can help you do just that!
Have a question you’d like answered? Send to: support@kimkelleythompson.com
