How to use keywords

Hey! You found me. Awesome. Now, let’s talk about how people are finding your brand online. Whatever else you might be doing, it definitely has something to do with keywords.

Keyword are words that indicate the content of your document and help in its retrieval online. You want people retrieving your documents (otherwise, why else are you creating content)? And, how do you find content? If you’re like me, you Google it. Google likes keywords. Other search engines like keywords too.

Where to find your keywords

If you have a website, you’re probably using Google Analytics, and if you aren’t you should. Google Analytics is where you’re going to easily find the keywords people are using to get to your website. Go ahead, check them, you might be surprised how people are already finding you.

Pay attention to the content your customers are creating. Note how they talk about your brand or products; mimic their language. Make a list of potential keywords and check their popularity with tools like Scribe or Wordtracker.

Identifying and using the right keywords will help more of the right people find your brand.

How to use keywords

To get the most impact out of your keywords, you want to use them in titles, headers, subheadings, link language. Make them stand out. Use them on your website, in your blog posts and on social media. Make sure you include keywords in your website and blog metadata so they’ll be more easily found  by search engines.

Finding keywords is an ongoing process

Once you’ve identified and put your keywords to work, you aren’t done. It’s an ongoing process. Like any strategy, it’s important to check if your keywords are working and see what keywords could be added. Did you know that 20% of terms typed into Google have never been searched before? True story.

Your customers are creative; you need to keep up. Customers that used to be searching for “Where to buy widgets” might now be searching for “Where to buy widgets online.”

Sure, we’ve blogged about keywords before but we’re revisiting the topic, because keywords need to be revisited on a regular basis. There’s a lot of noise out there, and we want to help you get found. Revisit keywords. We’re doing it, and we encourage you to do it, too.