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Get Inside The Head Of The Searcher
Get Inside The Head Of The Searcher
Before you decide to finalise the complete list of keywords that you want your site to rank for and I hope that you have an idea what this is, then you need to get inside the head of the person who is searching.
People search for information on the internet all the time, the majority of searches have no commercial intent whatsoever and therefore are not worth trying to optimise a commercial site for. Just think about how you use the internet yourself and you’ll see the usual searches for news, weather, sport, entertainment and whatever else you look for on the internet.
A search term (what people type into a search engine) is also called a keyword. A keyword can be one or more actual words, joined together in a phrase. Example keywords could be “Solicitor” or “Criminal Solicitor in Manchester”.
Take the first example, “Solicitor”, what do you think that the person searching is looking for? Some of my thoughts include: looking for a definition of the word, finding out what a solicitor does, understanding the difference between the word solicitor and lawyer, etc. Is it worth optimising your website for the keyword “Solicitor”, probably not.
Taking the second phrase: “Criminal Solicitor in Manchester”, and applying the same logic, what do you think the searcher is looking for? Could be that they are looking for jobs as a criminal solicitor in Manchester, someone to defend them or a relative, firms that have criminal solicitors working for them, etc. This is a very different search term and one that is definitely worth optimising for (especially if you are a criminal solicitor in Manchester).
In general, people looking for the plural, i.e. solicitors are looking for a choice of firms whereas the singular is more of a buying keyword. Of course, people interchange the singular and plural all the time so some thought is needed.
The search engines have complex and detailed algorithms built into them to analyse the relevance and the intent of the search in order to determine the best results to return for any given search so I wouldn’t spend too much time agonising over whether to use the singular or plural- use what makes grammatical sense and you won’t go far wrong.
People search their problem many times in search engines, the trick is to get behind the search and give people (and the search engines) what they are looking for. If you are a Solicitor in Manchester then it makes sense to optimise for that term (which is in all probability the first prize keyword anyway).
The best buyer keywords; however are not always the most obvious. People searching using terms such as recommended, local, reviews, testimonials and the like are nearly ready to buy, they just need some more information and they will be calling you up and emailing you.
Spend some time to understand what sort of problems you can solve for people and ask friends and family to come up with the terms that they would use to find your business. when you have that list, put it into a keyword research tool like the Google Keyword planner and find more keywords. When you have done that, settle on one (or at most two) keyword phrases per page and build your site around what people are looking for, not just what you do- you’ll be glad you took the time I promise you.
