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Supercharging your
site with keywords isn’t nearly as effective as building it around them from
the ground up
Working on several SEO projects here at The Duffy Agency, I’ve come to realize keyword research has an even better use than optimizing a site for search engines – it should guide the entire focus of a site from day one.
Us SEO geeks usually start projects by doing some intense
keyword research to make sure we’re optimizing an existing site for the search
phrases with the greatest potential. This does help your content get found by a
whole lot more people, but your chance to reach the masses may already be out
of reach.
If you want to build a massively successful website in
today’s overcrowded cyberspace, you need a cunning strategy. Keyword research
is your secret weapon in crafting a strategy to give you a leg up on the competition.
Without this research, you’re leaving your fate up to wishful thinking, hoping
that your target is already searching for exactly what you’re creating and that
you can steal traffic from competitors. But by taking a close look at what your
target is searching for, you can tailor your content so that it gets placed
where millions of targeted individuals are looking for it. But there's a catch: your site’s core content might not end up being what you had planned.
I can sense your skepticism. After all, if you want to sell bikinis,
why should you go and make a website about swimming, workout tips and dieting
instead of simply setting up an optimized webshop?
Because there aren’t many people searching for bikinis.
Moreover, your webshop would be competing against every other company in the
category, and the best SEO in the world won’t put you in front of the global
giants. On top of that, you’ll only be fighting for the people typing “bikini”
into search engines.
When you do the research, you see that most people
interested in upgrading their beach-look are between 13 and 40, they work out,
they dream about vacations in the Bahamas, and even though they want your
product, most of them never search for it
. But they are
searching for pictures of beaches, reading blogs about working out and trying
out diets to lose a couple of pounds before bikini season. In other words, you
discover swimwear is actually a small part of a bigger need your customers are
trying to satisfy.
So instead of creating the website www.wesellswimwear.com
you create www.getreadyforthebeach.com.
And instead of targeting the keywords "swimwear,"
"bikinis" and "bathing suits," which are being intensely
fought over by a slew of competitors, you use "beach,"
"vacation," "work out" and "diet tips," since
they get millions more hits and are less contested by the competition.
There’s still competition to deal with, but you won’t be
competing against other webshops struggling for their piece of a small audience.
You’ll attract customers from a huge group of people who want your product, even
if they aren’t looking for it directly. And you’ll still have pages on your
site devoted to your webshop where you can fight for a place on the first
“bikini” search results page.
The moral of this little hypothetical tale is that keyword
research shows you what content your audience is out there looking for, and it’s
likely not what you’re selling, whether it be a product, service or obscure amusement.
You can’t do a whole lot with that information after your website is up, so
doing the research in the beginning and engineering your site to give your
target exactly what they want, where they’re looking for it, will lead to far
greater results on search engines and higher traffic in general. Maybe a site
that is all about you is exactly what you need, but you won’t know without the
research. And if you don’t do it until after you’ve poured your time and money
into making a site, your golden opportunity may have passed you by.
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