With over a 100 billion searches per month on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing it has become increasingly difficult for small businesses to get rankings on high competition keywords. So as small business owners who have the deck stacked against them, it is important that you choose the right search keywords for SEO to target, so as to achieve the best possible search engine rankings.
Choosing the Right Keywords
There is a difference in targeting keywords for SEO from one business to another. However every small business owner should employ targeting low competition keyword phrases as their starting point. The challenge is finding these key phrases that can bring in targeted traffic to your website. Small business owners need to focus on high quality traffic instead of high volume traffic that doesn’t convert into sales. After all you wouldn’t want to rank high for a keyword that brings in traffic that bounces off your site instantly after they realize that this is not what they are looking for. It is a waste of time and energy if the traffic is not niche specific and targeted to your business.
Concentrating on specific search terms that have minimal competition but still get decent search volume is key. To determine the right combination of keywords you need to do a few things first:
• Choose keywords which represent your business perfectly. List products or services that show the most potential in selling. Out of 10 search key phrases if you land even two (20%) that can land you sales, you are far ahead of your competition.
• There are keyword tools that can help you in finding the right keywords and search volumes. Most of us have a gmail account. Google’s AdWords suggestion tool is a one you can use with your gmail account. Other search engines like Yahoo and Bing also have their own keyword suggestion tools.
• WordTracker is great in helping you find niche specific keywords. Although it is not a free service like Google’s Adwords suggestion tool it is a good investment.
• A great way to generate long tail, low competition keywords is by making them local. For example if you are a local small business in Toronto, simply add the city name after the search phrase, “Dog grooming Toronto”. With the new Hummingbird update Google is targeting search results more and more for local search.
• Learn about your top competitors and find out what key phrases they are targeting. Trust me they are checking you out too. Find out what meta keywords they are targeting to get traffic to their sites.
Finally keep analyzing your website statistics to see what search terms are bringing in traffic already and start to modify them slightly to target other related terms that could potentially bring in even more search traffic for your business. The end goal of keyword search optimization is to help your customer find you with ease. That being said, you also want them to find what they are looking for, and hopefully what they are looking for is your business website!
For help on choosing the right keywords for your business and marketing those keywords online contact Repeat Business Solutions and find out how many other small business owners are creating a powerful web presence.