Do you think that it is important to market your business online? I suppose the real question is, “do you believe that you don’t need to?”. If you are in the latter category then you can be convinced otherwise by asking if your clients search for products and services using the Internet. Of course they do, which is why you need to read this article.
Marketing online means Google. Sure there are many other Search Engines out there, but most people use Google, so let’s focus on that.
Of course acceptance that Google may be a source of new business is one thing; actually making that happen is another. This article explains the basic steps to understanding how Google can be made to work for your business.
Google works on the basis of keywords, that’s to say the words that people type into the search box on Google.co.uk. The trick is to know which keywords your prospective clients type in to find businesses in your sector and then to make sure you appear on the first page of the respective search results. Easy right? Well, sort of…
Finding out which keywords prospective clients type in is not difficult. Simply use a free online tool provided by Google called the Google Keyword Tool to try out some keywords. This tool will tell you how many people are searching for these keywords in your target location every month and how much competition there is for those keywords.
How to Use the Google Keyword Tool?
Follow these steps:
– Click on this link to go to the Google Keyword Tool
– Type a word or phrase into the box and click Search
– You will see the following information related to your search term (and other related search terms):
– Local Monthly Searches: This is the average number of searches conducted per month for the search term in your chosen location
– Global Monthly Searches: This is the average number of searches conducted worldwide
– Competition: This is High, Medium or Low and relates to how many other websites are competing for Google ranking for that search term.
– Take a note of the most appropriate keywords for your business.
It might be best to steer off the high competition keywords from this tool as it will be quite difficult to rank on Page One of Google for these. Best to target the medium or preferably low competition keywords, which will likely require some lateral thinking on your behalf!
OK – so I’ve got my keywords – what do I do with them?
Armed with your keywords (have one main keyword and a few related keywords) then it’s a matter of deploying them on your site and elsewhere. This is a topic which could stretch to many many blog posts so I’ll write another next week to detail the process.
For now, conduct your keyword research and build your list. Then watch this space for the next steps. If you would like any help understanding this please contact me.
