Russian roulette or keyword research? Don't gamble the future of your online business!
The words you choose for important parts of your website matter so much if you want visitors to find your website in search engine searches.
If you guess the words people use to search for your website, you’re gambling with your website traffic (i.e. hits and visitors to your website) so the stakes are very high. Do you really want to take that chance when there's a much easier and more profitable way – keyword research.
Keyword research: the perfect foundation for your website
The future of your online business depends on your website being built on a strong foundation from the beginning. Keyword research provides the basis for building the strongest possible foundation. Why? Because you can learn which search words people use every day in Google UK for your products or services.
As an example: a website build for a Camping Shop shows why keywords are so important:
Suppose you owned a camping shop ...
Would you guess the best words people use to find tents? You might choose words such as ‘2 berth tents’, ‘4 berth tents’ and so on to group your tents. Although that choice may seem sensible during the website-build stage, let's see how keyword research reveals why those words lay a poor foundation for the website to gain search engine visitors.
See Graphic 1 to the right showing keywords with search volumes for ‘berth’, ‘person’ and ‘man’.
The snippet from the keyword research (above) shows why the word ‘berth’ is a poor choice. People prefer to use the keyword phrase ‘man’ when they search – not ‘berth’. If you base your website navigation menu on the wrong foundation (in this case ‘berth’ rather than ‘man’) you’ll miss out greatly. It will be too late to change and you’ll be stuck with words that form a poor match with what people really use in search engines.
Can you really afford to get your keywords wrong?
With what result? Search engines will compute that the website is not a relevant match for people searching using phrases such as ‘2 man tent’ or ‘4 man tent’; you’ve blown the opportunity to be listed for ‘2 man tent’ searches, which are used 5,400 times per month. You lose the high stakes you’ve gambled with and have to make do with ‘2 berth tent’ searches, which are used only 170 times per month. Can you really afford to get this wrong?
Graphic 2 - website navigation menu using research
What can keyword research do for your website?
The success of search engine marketing therefore relies heavily on the use of effective keyword phrases and text. We’ll promote your business by carrying out thorough keyword research (100s of relevant popular keywords, rising to thousands of keywords for some types of business). We’ll also uncover the golden keyword phrases that are regularly being used in searches on Google UK. You’ll know the most popular down to the least popular search phrases that people regularly use, with details of their monthly search volumes.
Our keyword research improves how your pages rank
During your website’s build process, we’ll use the keywords to target your products and services in order to attract the right type of potential customers. The better the focus, the greater the reader’s attention will be because your website will be using the specific keyword phrases they’ve used when searching Google UK. This better match between website and actual search engine searches will also improve the ability of each page to rank in the search engine results.
When your website goes live you can continue to benefit from the keyword research as we improve the authority and reputation of your website using our link building services. Perhaps your website would also benefit from a Google Adwords marketing campaign where the keyword research is used to build Adwords Keyword groups.
Still don’t believe us? See what Google says on keyword research
You’ll never regret your decision to invest in keyword research. The right Keywords must be an integral part of your website in order for it to speak the same language as your customers.
Don't take our word for it. Take two minutes to watch this video where Matt Cutts (head of the Google Webspam Team) confirms what we've said. Then call us on 01242 22032 to see what this means to your website!