Choosing keywords is one of the most important steps in the optimization process yet too many times I speak with people who only think their main keywords are important. I then like to ask them how they might search for a service or product on their own. It’s amazing to hear what terms they would use to find someone elses website but they don’t think to do the same when it comes to finding theirs.
One exercise I like to take when developing a keyword list is to look at the product or service from the viewpoint of many people who would be searching for different reasons. Like:
- Product or Service Specific Information
- Price Comparison
- Locale
- Buy Now
And so on depending on what it is I’m developing the list for. This exercise always produces variations that help me with a more rounded list which in return will bring a variety of visitors to the site and increase conversion rates.
So let’s try this briefly using Widgets as a product.
Product Information – Let’s say we want to find out the latest model of Widget available, so a term might be “latest model Widget” or if we want to know the history of Widgets the term might be “history of widgets”
Price Comparison – A simple one eh? “Compare Widget prices” or “Best Widget price” or “Price comparison Widgets”
Locale – “Widgets Dallas” or “Widgets Dallas TX” or “Widgets Texas”
Buy Now – “buy Widgets” or “online Widgets store” or “Widgets for sale”
Of course with each of these you should exhaust the possibilities but in the end you should have a very good set of “secondary” keywords that are very targeted and should translate into increased traffic and actions.
