So What’s A Keyword Anyway? 3 Basic Facts Small Businesses Need To Know

Through online efforts, today’s tech savvy small business owner has an opportunity to reach well beyond their local footprint to find customers. In this new and exciting digital age, small businesses can become global businesses, with customers and resources from all over the world.  And they do so by knowing how to be found on the internet.

But in reality, not all small business owners are tech savvy nor do they want to be. But, we can all agree that we want our businesses to be found on the internet by those looking to buy.  And while many factors influence a website’s ability to do just that, the proper use of keywords can improve your chances dramatically.

What are keywords?

By definition, they’re the words and phrases that others will use when searching for your business or website online.

Search engines, like Google, use keywords in their search to find relevant web pages, frantically looking through millions of possibilities to return results that best match the visitor’s request for information.

While the infamous “Googlebot” is robust, it handles about 5 billion searches per day and well over 100 billion per month!

How will you get its attention? One way is through the use of keywords.

But figuring out which ones to use… not so easy. There’s plenty online services to help, but you may face fees at some point.

What can you do right now to get you started?

Why don’t you try…

1.  Interviewing yourself.  Sit down with a pad and pencil and ask yourself these questions:

• When you think of the value your business offers, what terms come to mind?
• What customer problems does your business solve?
• What terms appear over and over again in customer feedback?
• If you were looking for the services you provide, what terms would you type into the search engine?
• What keywords do your competitors use on their websites? 

What did you come up with?

Nothing?  Impossible.  A few?  Good.

Now, with list in hand, you want to update your website. Be careful not to…

2.  Overdo it.  Keyword stuffing is the process of overloading a webpage with repetitive keywords in an attempt to gain visibility and ranking in search engine results.  However, you actually get the opposite effect. Search engines don’t like this practice and will penalize your website for it. No head of the class for you.

Wait, I know. It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?  So, don’t be afraid to…

3.  Outsource it.  Seeking the advice of a SEO (search engine optimization) professional is a good idea and in the long run, could save you precious time and money.

Rule of thumb: focus on quality content, not quantity of keywords. While there is no limit to how many keywords you can use, there is a limit on how many you should use. Target between 5 to 10 words or phrases that seem to have high search volume and seamlessly fit into the rest of your website content.