This is the first in a multi-part post series about website positioning.
Keywords: how we look for stuff on the web
It doesn’t matter if you already have a website or you’re looking to build your first site. It all starts with keywords. This is how your customers find you on the web. When a potential new customer “looks” for something on the web, they usually start by entering a few words into a search engine like Google or Bing. The customer may know what they are looking for, but they don’t know the name of a business that provides it.
What are your customers searching for?
If someone’s looking for a coffee shop in Portland, they might search using the keywords “good coffee” or “Portland coffee.” Coffee shop websites using these keywords on their web pages, in their site code (behind the scenes), and in their web marketing, might stand a good chance of showing up in this search. Funny thing is… finding the right keywords is not as easy as you might think. For instance, “coffee shops in Portland” is a better keyword phrase than the two we mentioned above for a number of statistical reasons that we would be happy to share with you if you ask. The bottom line is, you may have an idea of what people are looking for, but usually the keywords people are using to search for your business are very different from the ones you think they would use.
In the next post I’ll talk about finding the right keywords and how to use them effectively.
