One of the most effective ways to grow your business is through search engine optimization (SEO). While there are many different components to SEO, some are more important than others – with choosing the right keywords being at the top of the list.
A great keyword strategy is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools you can have. Keywords can help you get traction on search engines, target the most valuable section of your audience, and inspire action. Unfortunately, too many businesses are focused only on visibility and fail to see the ways that an actionable keyword strategy can attract customers and move them through the sales funnel.
If you’re ready to start seeing real results, like a nice boost in conversion, here are a few tips for choosing actionable keywords that will perform for your business.
Identify Levels of Your Sales Funnel
The first step to choosing actionable keywords is realizing that they’re going to be different depending on which stage of your sales funnel you’re appealing to. For instance, the actionable keywords that you use to attract someone to your website for the first time are completely different than the more targeted words you’ll use to nurture those last steps toward conversion. Taking this approach will enable you to focus on “buckets” of keywords for each point of your funnel.
Use Tools
Keywords are evaluated using a combination of volume and difficulty. Volume is used to describe how many searches a keyword gets over a specified amount of time while difficulty refers to the level of competition there is for any given keyword across multiple domains. There’s a misconception among those who are new to SEO that the most actionable keywords for their business will be the ones that rank at the top of both of these scales.
For smaller business, who are new or haven’t yet worked up enough traction to build authority online, choosing keywords that are too competitive isn’t going to work. The reason is that it’s near impossible for them to rank considering that the “big guys” or sites with more authority have already earned priority ranking.
Instead, you should use tools that will help you find the keywords that have just the right level of volume and difficulty to get your website ranked, attract customers, and nurture them along the funnel. Tools like Google Analytics, Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush and BuzzSumo are good places to start.
Consider Intent
The best keyword isn’t always the one that looks great from a research and analytics standpoint. You can find a gold nugget of a keyword, but if it doesn’t align with the intent of your message or with the action you want your audience to take, then it isn’t going to perform.
Always keep intent at the front of your mind when choosing an actionable keyword strategy and make sure that the high performing keywords that you choose make sense for your goals beyond ranking on page one.
Finding the right actionable keywords for your SEO strategy can be a challenge. But we’re ready to roll up our sleeves and make it happen. We offer the SEO services that will produce results for your growing business. Reach out to Inquisitek today to find out more about how we can help you connect with your target audience.
