How to Target the Right Keywords for your Small Business
According to Semrush, “keywords are search terms that a website owner or SEO professional will use to optimize a website in the hopes of ranking at the top of Google’s results for specific keywords.”
The right keywords for your business not only drive organic search traffic to your website, the right keywords for your business also attract visitors to your website who are most likely to be converted into customers. The process that makes this possible is known as SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.
If you’re not super familiar with “search engine optimization,” you might not have a great idea of how to find the best keywords for your website -- the keywords that will help you get more conversions.
According to Semrush, “keywords are search terms that a website owner or SEO professional will use to optimize a website in the hopes of ranking at the top of Google’s results for specific keywords.” That’s a clear and simple description. As a business owner, or the person responsible for attracting visitors to a website, you probably have an idea of some keywords you think represent your business. You might have even made sure they’re included in the content of your website. But… the trick is to optimize your website (and other digital marketing content), for the best keywords that represent your business and will also bring the visitors to your website who are most likely to become your customers.
As an example, I recently did keyword research for a local Interior Design firm. In the development of their website, they decided to use “decorate homes” as their main keyword and also in their home page title tag. In addition, they wanted to let people know they do Universal Design, so it also shows up as a main keyword for their website. To the business owner, those keywords make a lot of sense because decorating homes is what they do. But… When I began my research, my first stop was Google Trends to get an ideal of real world search results for each of those keywords and “interior design,” which is the first thing that came to mind when I visited the website.
So, I did a quick comparison search between “interior design,” “decorate homes,” and “universal design.”
As you can see in the screenshot, there is no comparison in the number of searches between these 3 keywords. According to Google Trends, people use the keyword, “interior design” as a search keyword much more than decorate home or universal design.
As you can see in the screenshot, there is no comparison in the number of searches between these 3 keywords. According to Google Trends, people use the keyword, “interior design” as a search keyword much more than decorate home or universal design.
Now that doesn’t mean the website shouldn’t use the other keywords; it would just seem to make sense to optimize the content for the terms people use more often to find that service. Based on that information and a Google keyword index report using my report tool inside SE Ranking, my recommendation was to update their website content to include the keywords people are actually searching for.
Here are two other examples of real-world search trends based on different keywords. If you are a lawyer, do you use “attorney,” or “lawyer” as the main keyword for your website?
As you can see in this screenshot, “attorney” is used much more often in Google searches. Since most people use the terms interchangeably, why not optimize your content for the search term more people use in the real world?
Another good example is “fitness trainer” and “personal trainer.”
As you can see in this screenshot, “personal trainer” is used more often in real world search results. Of course, it’s fine to use both keywords, it’s also good to know the strength of the keywords you select.
How to Optimize for Local Search vs National Search
Something to be aware of, as a local business, competing for a high-volume search term can be difficult. The trick is to include your main keywords with the geographic area you want to draw customers from. One of the most included keyword combinations these days is “…near me.” So, if you are in a competitive industry, like law, or dentistry, or fitness, your best bet at being rewarded with a high ranking is through targeting keywords that include a geographic designation. In my earlier example, I recommended using “interior design” and their city or town, in search engine optimizations. As you’ll see later in this article, most of the keywords my company rank well on include my city, Walnut Creek, CA.
Besides including the right keywords, and a location, it’s important to concentrate on the keywords you have the best opportunity to rank high on. Google and other search engines look at how many times your site is clicked on in search results and what keywords people use to find your website. That means you need to deliver the goods once you make it to the first page of search results. (I focus on page one results, because, well, not many searchers make it to page two of Google!)
Google is a business too and they want to please their customers. They change their algorithms hundreds of times a year to make sure searchers are finding exactly what they’re looking for. If you do achieve a high search ranking, Google needs to be able to trust you with that high ranking they bestow upon your website. The way people interact with your website will determine how long you keep that high ranking. That means optimized content that yes, includes the keywords you would like to rank on, but it also needs to be content that meets your website visitors' expectations and answers their questions. If they don’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll bounce right off to a competitor!
How do you check website’s keyword rankings?
SEO companies should be able to run keyword ranking reports (we have a dashboard that updates every week), to help you follow how your company ranks with your selected keywords.
Sites like Semrush.com, Moz.com and Ahrefs.com have great keyword research tools and free versions for small business owner with limited requirements.
As you can see in the report for my Piinch Web Design site -- we just recently began a more aggressive SEO campaign -- changes to Google rankings are happening all the time. (Google changed their search algorithms over 500 times in 2019.)
I use SE Ranking as my reporting tool.
The screenshot and short video show the keywords Google found when the indexed my site in late September. I rank pretty well on the keywords I target, like “web designer company and “local SEO services Walnut Creek.” To keep my rankings high and hopefully improve on them, I need to keep creating informative keyword-rich content and then get trusted websites to link-back (backlink) to my website. If you put in the work and continually update your website with authoritative content, you will be rewarded with good organic local search rankings… but, it takes time, so keep at it!
