If you have a website, chances are you have heard of keywords, you probably know that they are important and you want to use them on your website and in your digital marketing, but what are they and how can you use them effectively?

What are keywords?

These are the words and phrases an internet user types into a search engine to find websites that match what they are looking for.

What are they used for?

Keywords link internet searches with websites.

How to research your keywords?

There are several ways to research your keywords you should start by answering these questions:

What words describe my product or service?

Example: Sussex based marketing agency, website design and build, website redesign Sussex, email marketing Sussex.

What problem does my product or service solve?

Example: I need more leads, I want my website to look good on a mobile.

What adjectives, phrases or nouns are used to describe my product or service?

Example: affordable marketing, innovative marketing campaigns, responsive website design.

This should give you a great base to get started. You should also research your competitors, what are they doing, what words or phrases are they using on their website and in their adverts? Although remember, not everyone gets it right, make sure you’re researching those competitors that are doing it right, those you aspire to be like.

Tools

Probably the best known tool is Google’s Keyword Planner, you can use this to check the volume of searches for your researched word or phrase. It will also give you suggestions and ideas for other keywords. Another of our favourite tools is www.answerthepublic.com you can find out what types of questions are being asked around your keywords and write FAQs or blog articles to help answer these questions.

Implementation

Now you have your keywords you need to implement them on your website. Create pages on your website targeting your keywords or groups of similar keywords and include them in the title, url, page copy and meta tags. However, make sure you read your copy out loud and if it sounds odd, re-write it! No one wants to read something like this:

“Sussex based marketing agency, The Marketing Boutique, Sussex provides affordable marketing packages in Sussex for Sussex businesses” So make sure you focus on copy that reads really well to keep the user engaged. Google is getting smarter and therefore ‘keyword stuffing’ is not necessary and is just plain odd.

Evaluation

Keyword research should be and ongoing process, you should be continually evaluating, adding and updating your keywords and your website.

So now you know what keywords are, how to research them and how to implement them on your site.

If you would like help with your keyword research, implementation, SEO or PPC, then feel free to contact us. We would love to help.