If you’re new to having a website for your small business, getting it optimized, and keeping it optimized for search can be somewhat of a challenge.

Part of the over all optimization process includes finding the best keywords.

Finding the best keywords for your small business involves a mix of understanding your business, your audience, and how search engines work.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get you started:

Understand Your Business and Goals:

• Clearly define what your business offers. What products or services are you selling?
• Identify your unique selling propositions (USPs).
• Determine what you want to achieve with SEO (e.g., increase sales, boost product awareness, drive traffic for ad revenue).

 

Know Your Audience:

• Who are your customers? Create buyer personas if you haven’t already.
• What problems do your products or services solve for them?
• How do they search for these solutions? Think about the language they use.

 

Brainstorm Initial Keywords:

List terms and phrases you think your potential customers might use to find your business.

Include:

• General terms related to your industry.
• Specific product or service names.
• Common questions or problems your audience might have.

 

Use Keyword Research Tools:

• Google Keyword Planner: Great for getting search volume and competition data directly from Google.
• SEMrush or Ahrefs: Offers insights into what keywords your competitors are ranking for, along with other valuable SEO metrics.
• Ubersuggest: Provides keyword suggestions, volume, and difficulty scores.
• AnswerThePublic: Helps in finding long-tail keywords based on questions people ask.

 

Analyze Competitors:

• Look at what keywords your competitors are targeting. This can be done manually by examining their websites or using the aforementioned tools to see where they rank.

 

Consider Long-Tail Keywords:

• These are longer, more specific phrases that are often less competitive but can drive highly targeted traffic. For example, instead of “shoes,” use “men’s waterproof hiking shoes.”

 

Check for Relevance and Intent:

• Ensure the keywords are relevant to your content or products.
• Understand the intent behind the keywords (informational, navigational, transactional). For sales, focus on transactional and commercial investigation intents.

 

Evaluate Keyword Metrics:

• How many searches does the keyword get per month?
• How hard will it be to rank for this keyword?
• If you’re also considering PPC, see how much advertisers are willing to pay for these keywords, indicating their commercial value.

 

Localize If Necessary:

• If your business serves a local area, include geographic terms like city or neighborhood names.

 

Test and Refine:

• Use Google Ads to test how well different keywords convert without fully committing to SEO efforts.
• Monitor your website’s analytics to see which keywords bring traffic and conversions. Tools like Google Analytics can help with this.

 

Stay Updated:

• Keyword trends can change. Regularly update your list based on new products, changes in customer behavior, or shifts in your industry.

 

Content Creation:

• Once you have your keywords, create quality content around them. This could be blog posts, product pages, FAQs, etc., ensuring you naturally incorporate these keywords.

 

Remember, SEO is not just about stuffing keywords but about creating value for users. The keywords should guide your content strategy to meet the searchers’ intent effectively.