Last week, we dug deep into the idea of Using Keywords to Further Your Mission. But we ended up on a bit of a cliffhanger – once you have your mission, you still have to create the right keyword strategy to make your vision a reality.
The first step to finding a keyword strategy is research.
There are no shortcuts to finding out the best combination of words that your website should aim for – it’s, quite literally, something that you have to take to the books. In this case, though, our “books” are keyword finding websites. Doing quality research will help you do two things: get specific and provide what people are searching for.
1. Get Specific
To start off, it’s a good idea to go as specific as possible. There is a huge amount of competition for general keywords because everyone wants to be at the top of Google. Sometimes, going after a smaller audience actually increases your visibility – and your rate of people who buy your product. In the end, you’re after the largest numbers of customers possible – and you might get more buyers from a select audience of 1,000 than a general audience of 10,000.
If we search Digital Marketing Company, we get 2,530,000,000 results.
However, Soulheart is based in Phoenix, Arizona. In general, people might want to search for a company that is near them. So, we might use a specific keyword phrase.
Digital Marketing Company Phoenix gets 45,800,000 results.
Yes, the number – 45 million! – is still staggering. However, by adding Phoenix, you’ve also eliminated 98.2% of the previous competition. This means that it’s significantly easier to rank on the first page of Google. At the same time, by adding Phoenix to the keyword phrase, you’re targeting the audience that’s already looking for you. And on that note:
2. Provide what people are searching for
There are to find out what people are looking for that are available online. At Soulheart, we’re big fans of the Moz Keyword Explorer. On this site, you can type in any keyword and see how many people are searching for it. This gives you an idea of the competition you’d be facing as well as the markets that are prime for disruption.
For example, using the keyword tool and trying out different permutations and descriptions of our company, we found that
Creative Agency Arizona has 0 monthly searches,
Phoenix Arizona Creative Agencies has 10,
Creative Agency has 1,700-2,900 monthly searches,
Digital Marketing Company has 851-1,700 monthly searches, and
Digital Marketing Phoenix has 51-100 monthly searches.
As we looked at this research, we could immediately rule out aiming for the keywords Creative Agency Arizona and Phoenix Arizona Creative Agencies – they don’t have enough traction to produce reliably viable leads over time.
At the same time, Creative Agency and Digital Marketing Company have reliable traction, but these are more general queries and are subject to, as we saw in #1, much stiffer competition.
Finally, Digital Marketing Phoenix, while having a much smaller monthly search quota, might be a great keyword phrase to add to our aims because it is highly specific.
If we find highly specific keywords for which we are a good match that also obtain a good level of traction – then we’re in the sweet spot for SEO success.
In the end, though, your SEO efforts and your keyword strategy will only be as successful as your vision is clearly defined. It’s worth spending some serious time to think about what you want to accomplish before you dive into the (pretty deep) waters of SEO research. However, when you do take that dive, remember that Soulheart is here to help you on your journey to SEO success!
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