Keywords. Mention that term to any online marketing practicioner, and you’ll get near universal agreement that keywords are the foundation upon which everything else must be built. Keywords are discrete, and they serve a very specific purpose. Without them, the link to your customers may never be established.
Some would argue that keywords are overrated, and that branding is the key. Well, that’s all fine and good if you’re Apple or Coke or Jenny Craig, but for the rest of the world, they need to work on developing their targeted key words. Consumers know that Apple produces great computers, music players and phones, that Coke produces cola, and that Jenny Craig parades once hot, now fat celebrities and showcase their journey to slimness. But what about the rest of the world, the Mom and Pop dot coms? What do they sell and how do potential customers find them?
To realize success online, producers need to focus on keywords that would allow them to connect with their customers when their customers go online searching for solutions. Let’s take a ficticious business and call it Wendy’s Dog Threads. Wendy sells an assortment of things related to pet dogs, but primarily she features small dog clothing. When a customer goes online to look for clothing for their pampered pooches, they certainly are not going to search for “Wendy’s Dog Threads” especially if they haven’t heard of Wendy before.
How then, could Wendy ever hope to connect with those potential customers? This is where keywords, and more specifically, keyword research comes into play. Wendy will need to analyze the terms, or key words, that most customers use when they’re looking for dog clothing. Customers may search for pet apparel or dog sweaters, or maybe more specifically they may be searching for small dog clothing or big dog clothes. But if Wendy fails to ascertain that, and focuses her marketing on the term Wendy’s Dog Threads, for example, then guess what happens? She will have failed to capture those potential customers who were seeking dog clothes using their key words, and not Wendy’s branded key words.
The bottom line is, customers will search for solutions using their own key words, and not some snazzy, jazzed up moniker or domain name. It is therefore critical that providers conduct an in depth keyword research to understand what terms, i.e. keywords, their potential customers are using when they go searching online. Once they determine that, providers can then focus on a select group of keywords that line up with their offering. They can then focus their internet marketing efforts toward getting customers to see them as the destination of choice for those keywords.
In the next article, I will explore the concept of first impression, as it relates to the online search process. You will, of course, want to make a good impression, lest you lose them for good. But are there situations where you actually might want your customers to be repulsed by your front page? You’ll be surprised how some internet marketers actually hope for that outcome. That and more, in our next article.
Traci Nelson