As a small business owner, it's vital not to overlook one of your most powerful marketing tools - your company website! But if you don't consider yourself technically savvy, you might feel at a loss regarding website optimization. Among the most important but often misunderstood aspects of website optimization is the use of keywords. So what are keywords, and how exactly do they help your business?
Keywords are simply the words or search phrases that potential customers use to find businesses like yours online. When used correctly, keywords can help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), which allows you to attract more organic web traffic.
Before you start incorporating keywords into your website, you first need to research which ones are most relevant to your business. This process is called keyword research, and it's essential for two reasons:
It's critical to remember that not all keywords and phrases are equal. Just because a keyword has high search volume doesn't mean it's the right one for your business. It would be best to consider the competition for that keyword and the searcher's intent.
For example, if you own a small mom-and-pop shop that sells shoes, it wouldn't make sense to target the keyword "shoes." The competition for that keyword is high, and the searcher's intent is likely just browsing. A better keyword to target would be "women's shoes online," which has lower search volume but higher buyer intent.
Once you've determined which keywords you'd like to target, it's time to incorporate them into your website. There are a couple of approaches to do this, but the most common is by using them in your website's title tag, meta description, and throughout the body of your content. Keep in mind that each new keyword you incorporate on your site creates a new keyword-targeted landing page, which helps improve your website's overall SEO.
When used correctly, keywords are a powerful asset to your website and content marketing strategy. By investing the time and resources to do research and incorporate relevant keywords throughout your site, you can help improve your website's search engine ranking and attract more organic traffic.
If you could use a hand to get started with keyword research for your business, we're here to help! As a digital marketing agency, SEO is one of our areas of expertise. So contact us today to learn more about how we can help you take your website and content marketing strategy to the next level.