Choosing Keywords

So how do you come up with these keywords? Here are a few suggestions:

1.Internal Brainstorming: No one knows your site and products better than you do. Think about what your clients are looking for and how they would use the search engines to find your business. Get with your employees and business partners and
just talk it out. Be sure to shift focus from industry or technical

jargon to the words and phrases your clients would actually use when talking about your company and products, or words used when they have asked questions in the past. This is a great way to begin gathering keywords.

2.External Brainstorming: Ask family and friends to do a search in order to find the products or services you sell. What terms and phrases do they use? It’s amazing just how insightful this can be. Others can see and describe your products in a very different manner when they aren’t current clients or familiar with the products you sell or provide. This is a great activity for learning how potential clients would attempt to find you through search.

3.Client Feedback: Ask clients what impressions they get of your site, company, and products, and write down the words they use. These phrases and ideas come from those who have already found your company and purchased in the past. They might provide some ideas to help address the demographic and localization differences in the phrases customers use to find you initially. These differences can prove to be very important. The other day I purchased something online and within a day after I had received the product I got a follow-up email. In this email they asked me if I was satisfied with the product and if I had any comments to help them improve in the future. Thinking about it now, I realize my comments would really be helpful to this company in finding new and relevant keywords.

4.Discussions and Forums: Nearly every industry has some form of discussion group or forum, where people can discuss problems or seek advice. Using these groups and forums is a great place to find keywords that people use when casually referring to the product, services, and features, and even when describing problems they may have faced.

5.Keyword Tools: Tools like Google's Adwords Keyword Tool, WordTracker, SEOGears’s Keyword Finder and other keyword discovery tools are great ways to find new keywords. As an example we will include a screen shot for the keyword phrase “SLR cameras” entered into the Google keyword tool

(https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool). The Keyword Tool suggested the following as possible additional keywords.

Just start with your top keywords and see what other related keywords these tools suggest, then record the ones you consider most relevant.

TIP FOR YOU: Check your competitor’s website and see what keywords they are targeting and ranking with. You will not only find keywords to compete for, but you can get ideas for keywords you haven’t thought of yet.