Keyword Research and Prioritization

The very first step in a successful Internet marketing campaign is to identify your keyword priorities. You can't hit the target if you don't know what you're shooting at. You may know WHO you want to target, and that's a good first step. If you're a dentist embarking on an Internet marketing campaign, you may say, "I want more cosmetic patients." Great, but what keywords are those prospective patients typing in to find dentists like you? Call or email me today, and we can talk about the keywords that are most likely to bring business into your door.

One of the benefits of working with a specialized firm, like a dental Internet marketing company is that they know from experience which keywords are the best to target, and can then customize their list according to your practice's priorities. Concerto Internet Marketing is familiar with dental and plastic surgery Internet marketing. If you're in another industry, you may not be able to find a company that is as intimately familiar with your business, which isn't the end of the world. You just have to be sure to work with an Internet marketing company that knows how to listen to you and ask the right questions to get to know your business, and then follow up that information gathering with good keyword research.

The Keyword Research Process

Once you have established your core priorities, you need to brainstorm some ideas for variations on the keywords that seem like no-brainers. You may be surprised to learn that your assumption that everyone is typing in "breast augmentation" for instance is not accurate, and that a large percentage of people are actually typing in "breast implants". Google has a tool called the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool, that helps you with your brainstorming. It can give you an idea of what other keywords people are typing in and how frequently. It also tells you how fierce the competition is in the pay-per-click advertising world, which gives you some insight into how valuable a particular keyword might be. There are other tools available that allow you to "spy" on your competitors' websites to see what keyword phrases they are targeting with their SEO. This is important if you want to beat particular competitors at their own game.

It's important to note that you don't want to go crazy and try to target every keyword that you come up with. The next stage in the keyword research process is to whittle the list back down to a more manageable size. Here again, the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool comes in handy. You can see how much traffic there is for the various phrases. If a keyword is relatively low on traffic, then it may not be worth targeting, especially since targeting too many keyword phrases can water down your results. This is especially true if your website doesn't have enough custom content in the form of separate pages for your various services. Going back to the breast augmentation example, if you want to target "breast augmentation", "breast implants", "breast enlargement", and "breast enhancement" for your keywords, but had only one page for the procedure, that page would have to be optimized for all of those terms. This is a very ineffective strategy because your keyword density is hugely decreased. So you either need to make a hard decision and target fewer keywords, or grow your website. You probably want to do a little bit of both.

For help with your keyword research, please contact me, and I'll be glad to help you out or at least point you in the right direction.