Keyword research and SEO are terms you hear a lot in the marketing communications/advertising world. Here we outline the basic ideas and meanings surrounding them, and how you can make them work for your business.
One of the important steps is finding the key words your audience use when searching for a product or service you offer and harnessing that to reach new customers more successfully. Without it, you will fall below the radar of those seeking exactly what your business provides, your products and services will not gain the awareness and understanding that they need. Your website and business development campaigns etc, will all fall below industry giants in search engine rankings – a battle you cannot win by budget.
Keyword research reveals the exact words and phrases people use when looking for information. This insight helps businesses understand the needs and desires of their target audience. By knowing the keywords that match user intent, businesses can create content that directly addresses the needs of potential customers, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversions.
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the practice of optimizing websites, web pages and content so that they rank higher in search engines, such as Google and Bing.
You should think of keyword research and SEO as an essential business function- the DNA of your business that can differentiate you from competitors. Ask yourself ‘Why should the search engine rank you higher than all the other companies that offer something similar?’ Or ‘Why should a potential customer buy from you rather than one of your competitors?’ Your answer to those questions is what your keywords should represent, though much more important than that, why the business exists.
Another helpful tip is to think about how your business solves your customers problems – the problems of real people in real companies – and select keywords from your audience’s language to match the terms potential customers are using in their searches.
There are two main types of keywords. You can have ‘short-tail’ or ‘long-tail’. Short tail is the most popular because they are searched for most often as they are less specific e.g. ‘engineering’, which will produce a huge number of results. Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific and therefore are searched for less frequently but can lead to a more specific audience reach e.g., ‘oil and gas engineering’ Around 70% of all searches today are made using long-tail queries.
Once you’ve decided on your keywords, what should you do with them? Your website is the first step. There are many ways you can change the site but the most popular are putting the keywords into the title tag- the title of the web page, the URL- the address of the web page, and placing them throughout the copy on your website. Not only should keywords feature in your website but they would be a part of all your marketing communications, including press releases, social media, posts and advertising.
This applies not only to big campaign, but also smaller projects, say social media recruitment ads on LinkedIn. When you put keywords into your ads, they will display when someone searches for that word or term, maximizing the chance someone interested in what your business offers, will see the communication.
It may seem tempting to load your marketing material full of keywords – and indeed in the early days of search, this was an effective strategy – but this can lead to unreadable copy and in advertising to a high spend. Best to include your keywords at the right time for the channel and message you are prioritising at that point. Readability in any marketing communication is key.
A major consideration that comes into play when deciding who you want to target and how, is their search intent – what are they trying to achieve. There are four categories of intent:
- Informational: looking for how-to content, such as how to install a pump.
- Navigational: looking for a specific website or company.
- Commercial: looking for a product or service but may not be looking to buy just yet.
- Transactional: wants to buy now, the highest purchase intent e.g. booking tickets, or signing up to a subscription service.
Identifying which of these you want to reach will add greatly to the success of your marketing and advertising campaigns.
Finally, there are a few different search criteria you can use depending on how you want to target your audience:
- Exact match- the search engine will only display your communications for exactly the keyword term you entered
- Phrase match- this slightly expands your selected key words so you will show up for variations of the term
- Broad match- this will display for phrases related to your keyword
- Negative keywords- these are keywords you can select you do not want your communication to be shown for.
Overall, implementing keyword research into your business is an important step in marketing your business, in communicating effectively and reaching the people you want to reach when you want to reach them. And that will enable you to find new customers, staff, suppliers, or funders – exactly those people who will enable your business to grow and prosper.
If you would like to know more about keywords and SEO, contact us today – email info@aroprandmarketing.co.uk or phone 0117 379 0008.
