Choosing Keywords for Your Web Pages
by Dave Maloney
You'll Never Be #1 for "Ice Cream"
(But you wouldn't really want to be)
A friend who owns a small ice cream truck company was asking me for advice on what they needed to do to rank better in search engines. I gave them the ultra-abridged synopsis of inbound marketing with SEO and choosing keywords to help get found. That having been already done, I learned that the keyword they were unsuccessfully hoping to rank for at the top of Google was "ice cream." After the wince I tried to explain why this tiny local company could never have a snowball's chance of even thinking of competing with the web power of the world's best known frozen confection corporations. (but not to worry, that's just for that term!)
Long Tailed Keywords
A keywords doesn't have to be just a word, it can (should) be a whole phrase. Long tailed keywords are just what their name implies; and by being longer, they're more specific - more custom tailored to apply to you.
"Ice cream" is a very general term. Maybe thousands of people are typing it in Google, but how many of them are searching for a recipe, a movie title or a rap singer? Even if you could get all these visitors to your site, it wouldn't help your business, you'd just have a really high bounce rate! ("Bounce rate" measures how many visitors came to a page on your site and left immediately because the page didn't have what they were looking for)
Choose keywords that will bring you the Best Traffic - not the Most Traffic
Choosing keywords more specific means less traffic, but the traffic you do get will be much more relevant. The term "Ice cream truck company" is worlds more specific than just "Ice Cream", but people entering this may be looking for a company that builds ice cream trucks.
Even if they are looking for services you provide, they may be sitting at a computer thousands of miles away. Try narrowing it down more, maybe "ice cream vending company ma" or "ice cream vending company worcester ma".
Don't worry about being too specific...remember, you want to choose a different keyword phrase for each and every page on your site; and if you want to rank for more keywords, it will only help your ranking to add more pages!
Want to learn more about how to choose the best keywords for your business?
Download the Free eBook:
Choosing Money Making Keywords