SEO is essentially very simple in its concept and implementation. Keywords are searched for and measured by engines such as Google or Bing, and your site is then ranked according to its relevance to the words which were searched. Placing keywords in the copy on your website will increase your SEO, but its effectiveness will only ever be as good as your keywords. Here are a few tips to make sure that your SEO is being built on the best keyword foundations.
Check out the competition
Look at the websites of your closest rivals and scan through their copy for keywords. If they are using the same keywords over and over, make a note of these and make sure that you use them on your website too. In order to rank higher in the searches than they do, your website will need to perform better than theirs for the same keywords. Of course, to give yourself the edge, you’ll also need to use a more varied selection of keywords then they have, so that you attract clicks from a wider number of different keyword searches.
Use phrases rather than words
People will rarely type one or two words into a search engine, they are much more likely to use a phrase or a question instead. Individual keywords can be too generic to make an impact, so try to use phrases such as those beginning with ‘how to’ or ‘the best way to’. Think about what you, yourself would type into the search bar and try to replicate this in your keywords.
Include place names
Think about all of the times you’ve been looking for a product or a service in your local area, and typed in what you need along with the place you are currently in. Make the most of this behaviour pattern by including regional and local place names in the keywords you use on your site. Even if you have a business which is based online or has a number of different locations nationally, you can still exploit this trend by including different articles or blogs using a different geographical keyword in each.
Do your research
Make the most of tools such as Google Trends and Google Analytics – they exist for a reason! Use your intuition to come up with a list of most likely keywords but back up your instincts with hard data. Choose the most plausible keywords and then pit them against each other in different analysis software to see which one(s) will perform best.
Read the DPOM blog today for further guidance on SEO and digital marketing.
