How to start identifying keywords for your website

Start with your Search Engine Optimization goals in mind

For most websites, the initial way SEO is tapped as a strategy is to get more people to the website through organic search. Although this is the overall goal, the truth is, a search engine only returns one page on your website at a time, not your entire website for each query. With this in mind, the goal of SEO is to actually focus on each page of your website as a landing page for your business, individually. The search you would do to find your brand is different from the search you would do to discover your services, and for each of these searches, as a user, you would expect to land on different content pages on a website.

So the goal of SEO is to use focused keyword phrases on each page of your website to entice people to click on a search link that will take searchers to the expected content page on your website.

What are keywords and keyword phrases and why do we care?

Keywords are the contextual content within individual pages that people search for through search engines. Keywords for a page are more than 1 word in most cases and make up contextual phrases.

Your homepage’s keyword 99% of the time is your brand name, like “SeeMe Media”. In other words, you expect people to land on your homepage when they search for your brand. For the other pages on your website, if you want people to land on your contact page and not your homepage a user would use a different search term, like “Contact SeeMe Media”, or “SeeMe media Email address” and would expect to land on a contact page, right?

This is why when we create content, having a keyword Phrase or phrases in mind is key to having new users find your content.

How can Keyword Research help after you have created content?

Most of the time, you created content because there was a need to fill a gap in knowledge for your customers. You did this without thinking about keywords, more just to fill a need. The good news about your website is that you are able to make content changes at any time. This is not a historical document or a newspaper article that can’t change once it is produced. By doing Keyword Research, even on old articles, we can identify ways to update the content on your current page to make them most relevant to the searches being done for that content, and for your potential customers.

Where to start your Keyword Research:

Start with the basics, the pages in your Navigation.

For each page in your navigation, come up with 3-5 (or more) queries or questions you would type into Google in hopes of that individual page coming up in the results. For most items in your navigation the queries may contain your brand, but whenever possible try to not include your brand. Remember if you want someone to discover you, they may not know your brand yet, so how will they find you? If they already know your brand, let’s get them to the right page, straight from search.

Examples:

Homepage:
SeeMe Media SEO
SeeMe Media Websites
SeeMe Media

About:
About SeeMe Media
Who is SeeMe Media
What does SeeMe Media do?
When did SeeMe Media Start?
Who owns SeeMe Media?

Services:
What services does SeeMe Media provide?
SEO Specialist in Durham NC
Does SeeMe Media build websites?
WordPress Website Developer in North Carolina

Our Process:
Does SeeMe media have a process they work with to build their websites?
When does SeeMe Media create a site map for the website build?
What is a 5 step process for building websites?

Taking on keywords for your articles

When thinking about keywords for your blog or articles, you want to approach them a little differently. Start with a query or question. What answer does your article provide to the reader? What question are they typing into Google? Try hard not to include your brand. Articles are how people discover your expertise, brand, and services without knowing who your company or you are. Complete the same assignment for the pages of your navigation for each of your articles. Focus on the articles that most help your services/products first, then work your way to more obscure articles after that.

What do I do with the keyword phrases?

This is where the work of SEO comes in. We start by looking at the phrases from your customer’s/user’s perspective. Are these actually phrases people would use to search for? There are some measurement tools out there to test this, but in most cases, in the early phases, we don’t need this. You know your brand and your customers. As long as you pass the gut check of Yes this is something my customer would search for, then we are good to keep moving. We can always adjust these later if we find they are not what your customer is searching for. If the phrase does not pass this test, how would you adjust it? Make that change now.

Now with your keyword phrases and queries in hand, look at the content on the page, does your page answer/contain content that can be interpreted by the search engine to answer this content? If yes, then great! In most cases, you will need to adjust your content. Go into each page, one at a time, and make sure your content answers the queries and terms of the searches you want to come to the page. Make sure to include these in your Title Tag, Meta Descriptions, and in the content of your page.

Some simple changes to look for.

• Avoid saying things like “it is” What is it? Say what it is every time. “It” is not a search term for your website.
• Avoid we.. say your brand, your name. “We” is not a search term with context for your site.
• Don’t be ambiguous. This is not a novel where you are trying to paint a picture with 1000 words, just to say your terms. Say what you mean in plain language. People search in plain language in most cases.
• For very technical fields/terms, use them. The audience will be smaller for these terms, but they will be highly targeted. This means the traffic you get for these terms will likely be educated in your field and be searching for exactly those terms.

Those are the basics of keywords, why they matter, how to find them, and apply them. Remember, changes to your content can take some time for Google and other search engines to register and trust, sometimes up to 90 days. Be patient and do the right thing here and you will see your organic search results grow and be more highly listed on the SERP.

Last thing to remember, your competitors are likely doing the same thing, updating their content to target similar keywords. This is not a one-and-done project, you may need to come back to each of your pages and articles and continue to make improvements to your content and your search targets if you want to stay one step ahead of the competition.