SEO management can be a tricky thing. If you know a little, it may be just enough to be dangerous. Understanding how to optimize your website content for a given keyword, for example, is a great asset for your business. But it can hurt your website’s chances of drawing traffic if it’s used to target the wrong keywords.
And one of the biggest keyword mistakes people make is assuming they know the keywords they need to target to draw the right traffic to their website. The age old question of whether a tree that falls in a forest makes a noise if no-one’s there to hear it is key here. If there’s no-one there to hear it, it makes no difference whether or not it makes a noise….because there’s no-one there to hear it. And that’s the same perspective of SEO management. If there is no real search volume for the keywords you’re targeting, it makes no difference whether or not you go to the trouble of optimizing your website, because no-one will see your website in the rankings.
It’s important to ascertain keyword volume before you set about optimizing your website because some keywords you think might be the ones your customers use to find businesses like yours just may be red herrings. The difference between search volumes for similar keywords (or even synonyms keywords) in a given industry can be staggering. One might think that customers in the construction industry search for generic search terms like, “Construction+Firm” or “Local+Contractor.” However, the fact is that could just be the tip of the ice berg in keyword opportunities for your website out there. The volume in your local region might actually sway toward “Builder” or “Remodeler” or even “Home+Renovations+Firm.” And you throw in local indicators or questions-based search, and the volume may actually favor searches like “Local+Remodeler+Near+Me” or “Indianapolis+Construction+Firm.” Targeting the wrong search (where keywords have really no measurable monthly search volume), could mean a lot of work for little-to-no results.”
And though Google has gotten a lot better about training its algorithms to understand synonyms, it turns out searches pinging specific keywords still today return results with those exact keywords at work on the page. So, it’s still important to know what keyword searched in your given industry are getting the most monthly searches (particularly in your local area if you’re primarily a brick-and-mortar brand).
So what is one to do? Well, first you want to start with a few keyword search tools like that help you: (1) find the volume for the keywords you’re targeting; and (2) suggest higher volume keywords you should be targeting in your SEO strategy.
Once you’ve done the keyword research, it’s important to ensure you have content optimized to target the keywords you’ve chosen. Perhaps there’s enough volume there to invest in a landing page that uses that keyword in the URL. You can also create a series of blog posts that target those keywords, specifically. Maybe even there’s enough search volume in your newly discovered keywords to warrant a helpful video you can host on your website. Whatever the case, it’s important to take actionable steps to own the real estate those keywords represent in your space because you may not be the only business who’s making the same keyword mistakes. If that’s the case, filling that hole in your strategy and you’ll trounce the competition at the same time and see rewards of improved positioning and targeted traffic in no time.
If you’d like to learn more about how keyword strategy can help to propel your website in the search rankings and bring you targeted traffic, call Proctor Digital at 773.664.5819. We’d love to help you get a leg (or two) up on the competition.