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Video Summary
To show up in the search results when someone is looking, your site must be relevant to the search. Relevancy is the relationship between your site and the search words chosen.
In order to boost the relevancy of your site, you must consider the keyword phrases that your prospects will be using when they are looking at the Google search page.
And for that, you’ve got to start with research, asking yourself one critical question…
Video Transcript
Hello, I’m Jeffrey Kirk. To show up in the search results when someone is looking, your site must be relevant to the search.
I talked about this in an earlier video and I’ll include a link (3 Critical Things Your Website Must Have) so you can review that one too. The key point for today is about relevancy, which is the relationship between your site and the search words chosen.
When we talk about the search words for your website, they’re most often referred to as keywords or keyword phrases. In order to boost the relevancy of your site, you must consider the keyword phrases that your prospects will be using when they are looking at the Google search page.
Consider your target market. Who are they? What’s going on in their minds? What problems are they looking to solve? And what are they going to search for? It’s important to know this information so that these words can be included within the context of your website.
To have an effective website, your site must connect with your visitors, based on the words you use in your site. So getting an understanding of what visitors are looking for is a good place to start in your website improvement process. In most cases, when a new website is built, there is some consideration for this, but not a lot of significant research.
A few weeks ago, I published a video called, “How Many People Are Searching For Your Business?” In that video, I introduce you to the Google keyword tool, so you could find out the number of searchers in your market, for what you offer. In case you haven’t seen that, click the link above.
Anyway, by using this tool, you can see how many searches are being performed on a global level, or within a country, state, city, or any combination of the above. The tool makes it easy to research the behavior of searchers within your market.
Since you’re watching this video, I already know you’re interested in keyword research, and there’s a lot of information about that topic for you to dig into as you want.
But what I want you to understand here is that when you begin your keyword research, remember that you are trying to attract an audience that is not IN your business. This is important to remember because the knowledge that people have in a business about their own industry, will often skew their impression of the marketplace.
There’s often a difference between the phrases used by interested searchers and the phrases used within an industry. For example, a few years ago, I did some research for a window treatments business. One of the areas of concern was over the industry phrase, custom draperies. Was that the right phrase to focus on if we want searchers to find the site?
While I was talking about custom curtains, my client pointed out that the proper phrase within the industry is custom draperies. So to him, it made sense to show up for people who were looking for custom draperies.
Yet, the Google keyword tool revealed, at the time, that prospects were searching for custom curtains, at a rate of nearly three and a half to one. The number of times the phrase custom draperies was searched using Google, during an average month, was 1,300 times, while the average for custom curtains was about 4,400 times.
The other interesting bit of information from the keyword report was the suggested bid. Bid information is for those who wish to advertise using Google and is based on the current competitive landscape. For this particular search, Google suggested a bid of $3.39 for custom draperies, while suggesting a bid of $2.48 for custom curtains.
The data suggests that most advertisers were more concerned about custom draperies than custom curtains and pushed the bidding higher for the former, even though there’s a much smaller audience.
This demonstrates the importance of research. Advertisers that simply pursue the phrases that seem correct within their industry, may be paying too much and then might not be properly targeting their desired audience.
In this case, by switching advertising dollars from custom draperies to custom curtains, we could save money on every click, while reaching a larger group of prospects. That’s a clear win for this little bit of research. Of course, the Google keyword tool is not the only tool available. There are plenty of other options for you.
Additional data, along with some testing, may reveal that those searching for custom draperies are actually closer to a buying decision than those searching for custom curtains. Or it may reveal that larger volume customers search for custom draperies instead of custom curtains.
I’m not saying either of these conditions are true but if research proves it to be so, then custom draperies might still warrant a higher bit price. But if testing does not reveal that condition, then choosing lower advertising costs for a larger market, would appear to be the better way to go.
So that’s the key point for today. When you start your keyword research, be sure to put yourself in the mind of your customers or your clients. It’s not about what you want them to be searching for. You have to ask, what are they thinking about when you want your website to show up in the search results?
So, thanks for watching today. Check out the links below to previous videos and if you’re trying to get more business with your website, please join me on an upcoming free webinar. I’ll show you the steps you need to take. Your business deserves to be seen online.
I’ll see you again soon, and have a great day.
