More often than not, people use search engines to find information and buy products online. Google was one of the first search engines to greet people with a powerful white box rather than offering them a typical browse feature. The search box has evolved into a complicated machine that takes something very serious - the keyword.
A keyword is a phrase consisting of one or more words that possesses a ranking factor in search engines. Your business’ website content should consider relevant keywords when trying to improve its ranking on search engines like Google. Keyword research is one of the most important, valuable, and high return activities in search marketing. Ranking for the “right” keywords may break or make your website.
Getting visitors to your website is important, but it’s more important to get the right kind of visitors. Keyword research will allow you to predict shifts in consumer demand, respond to changing market conditions, and produce the products, services, and content that web searchers are actively seeking. This powerful research tool can allow you to understand the motivations of consumers in an infinite amount of niches. Below is a basic process for assessing a keyword’s value:
First, you want to ask yourself whether or not the keyword is relevant to your website’s content. Will searchers find what they are looking for when searching for these keywords? Will they want to see what they find? Will the content answer their questions? You want to answer “Yes!” to all of these questions. Next, search for the keywords using major search engines. Noggin prefers using Google and Microsoft’s Bing. Let’s say you’re a lawyer who specializes in civil defense. Take a look at your competition:
You’ll notice some paid placements (yellow and side conditions) and natural search results. Spend some time understanding these websites and what kind of keywords they use in their content. There’s a reason to why they’re ranking high on SERPs (search engine results pages,) and it’s up to you to figure it out. Typically, many search ads means a high valued keyword, and multiple ads above the organic results often means a conversation-prone keyword. You can “test” traffic of a keyword using tools in Google AdWords. Track impressions and conversion rates over the course of 200-300 clicks. Using the data, you can determine the value of each keyword while establishing the importance of CTR’s (click-through rates.)