Are Your Keywords Relevant?

Yes, we are still obsessed with getting our websites to rank well. It is no secret that our business hopes and dreams are to have our websites be money making machines.

Some websites remain mere digital brochures, but I love it when an entrepreneur says ‘my site ranks number one on Google’ or a web design team boasts ‘our sites always rank number one on Google’. 

Hmmm I wonder, for how long and because of what keyword string do they rank number one?

And so the race continues to get our websites popping up on top when searches for our keywords are made. Unfortunately once there, how do you hold your position and scarier yet, are you ranking well for what people are actually searching for?

We recently ran some analytics on getting a client ranked using the keyword, then the name of the city and the keyword, and then the keyword and the name of the city. The only thing that changed was the order. This assumes that we even had the right keyword. The results were radically different, jaw droppingly different, so we ran some experiments with other key words and geographic qualifiers. This is not a scientific result but what we found brought us to the conclusion that people tend to search the item or service first and the geographic qualifier second. I began watching my own search methods and found that instinctively I do the same thing.

Now, I am compelled to make a comment on keywords. Think like a layman. We get so caught up in our own industry jargon and incorporate these as our common every day words, but are you sure that prospects speak your lingo? Do they even know the keyword you are using is the answer to their quest? I would suggest that on a routine basis you informally or formally question your clients and prospects and listen carefully as they tell you how they define your business. We spend time and money on our taglines and elevator pitches, but rarely do I see an all out effort to learn the language of the prospect. Your keywords should be their keywords.

Once you are there, how do you keep and hold your position? This is not like the military where once promoted to General, you hold the title and position for life. Search results are based on so many factors that you can’t be sure you will hold your position. There are dozens of marketing strategies to help you gain and maintain but it really boils down to two key issues: relevant and authoritative links back to your web site and fresh and relevant content. This content should be keyword rich content that’s continually added to your site. How you accomplish that is the strategy and the tools range from press releases, blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, and so on.

The moral of this post: verify your keywords and concentrate on links and content. How you do that should be a matter of what your resources and your story are like. The real point is, once you have launched or re-launched your site, the work has just begun.