In the early days, stuffing websites and articles with keywords was an effective, and albeit crude, way of achieving high rankings in the search engines.
Those days are gone, and the ways in which keywords support SEO efforts have evolved. But you may still be looking at your keywords through a narrow lens.
These days, keywords can be an integral part of your social media, branding, and content marketing.
Unfortunately, most business owners don’t know how to use keyword strategy across their entire businesses and marketing campaigns.
The following gives you all you need to implement powerful next-level methods of using keywords.
The Power of Keywords
Using keyword strategy the right way allows you to increase the visibility of your site pages and other content, but the ways in which users seek information online has changed.
Businesses can become biased in their perception of what customers are looking for. The truth is that one person’s way of searching for information will be completely different from another.
That’s why you need to utilize the correct keywords based on what your customers are typing into the search engines—not what you think they’re looking for.
This broadens the results pages your business appears in, and it lets you reach a wider audience.
Keyword Discovery…Beyond Analytics
There are a number of tools available to help you research keywords, but their power becomes limited when they aren’t coupled with market research.
It takes a human to think like a human and keyword research tools won’t always identify the keywords that your potential customers may be using.
One of the best ways to perform a “customer-centric” keyword research is to spend time coming up with the many words and phrases that they may use when searching for your product or service.
This gives you the insight you need to develop accurate questions that prospects may have in their minds.
The feedback from your existing customers is another great resource for overlooked, yet valuable, keywords. It helps you uncover the language, trends, and behaviors that make your market unique.
Implementing Keywords Across Your Entire Business
Using keywords exclusively to optimize your website is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Although it’s still critical to include keywords in your title tags, meta descriptions, image titles, and page content, these only represent the tip of the SEO iceberg.
- Branding
Keywords play a big role in creating your business brand. They encapsulate the value you offer in a way that can be easily identified by your existing and future customers.
Your brand becomes recognized through the use of keywords in your marketing materials, offline events, and networking opportunities.
- Social Media
Social media is like an extension of your website. It offers additional platforms that you can use to distribute content to those who are interested in your products or services.
Like your website, social media platforms can be optimized through the use of keywords. This helps your social media pages and profiles get more visibility in the results pages of search engines.
You can use keywords to optimize your Twitter profile, Facebook business page, LinkedIn profile and company page, and other platforms.
Include your keywords in the description and about sections of each platform to further strengthen your social media presence.
- Content Creation
Keywords help you create content for your ideal customers. By understanding the keywords they use to search for your products and services, you can create content with their specific needs in mind.
These keywords will also give you invaluable inspiration for future content. This helps you develop a more comprehensive and effective strategy for your content marketing efforts.
You’ll see an increase in organic traffic to your site when your branding, social media, and content are optimized with the appropriate keywords.
If you think your keyword strategy is holding your business back, let us know in the comments below. We’ll show you where you need to look first to begin taking your business to a new level of growth and success.
