A great Charleston SEO campaign is very complex, using a variety of different techniques to get ahead of the competition on the Google (and other search engine) search results pages. But that complexity is all built on a solid foundation: the foundation of keyword research. If that foundation is not built very carefully by an SEO professional who knows what factors to look for and how to address them, then there will be one of two different results. First, those complex, varied techniques will have very little to zero real effect on the client’s search rankings. Secondly, if the client’s website does achieve prominence in certain keyword searches, the searchers who click through to the site will not end up converting to become customers. Here’s a little bit about what’s involved in successful keyword research for your Charleston SEO strategy.
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Matching Keywords to Your Business
A typical SEO campaign targets 10 or so keyword phrases. In other words, your Charleston SEO firm optimizes the pages of your website to perform well in searches for those 10 phrases. Coming up with the 10 keyword phrases that best match your business is a much more complicated process than you might imagine! It’s not just about listing phrases that accurately describe the products or services you offer. You also need to consider what priorities potential customers may have in mind as they search for those products or services. If price is a common important factor, it may be a good idea to include phrases using the words “cheap” or “affordable.” If your service is limited to a geographical area, location-based keywords that include your city, nearby cities, or county will be valuable. You may need to think even harder about the searcher’s perspective: are there common terms for your services that you don’t use in your business, but that searchers who are unfamiliar with your industry might type in to find you? For example, you can insist on using the term “housecleaning” for your services, but that means you’ll miss out on all the people who search for “maid services” instead.
Analyzing the Competition
One of the main things you depend on your Charleston SEO firm for during the keyword research phase is competition research. Google’s search engine provides very detailed information about search activity for any given keyword phrase, so your campaign manager can find out how many people search for a phrase on a monthly basis. More importantly, they can get an idea of how many other websites are already performing well with that phrase on the results page. That’s important, because if your website focuses its campaign on highly competitive phrases, it won’t have much of a chance of breaking through for a long time. You shouldn’t expect to get top rankings for a phrase like “Heating and air conditioning repair” with your new campaign, since there are already many thousands of websites that have established themselves in competition for that phrase before you. Your Charleston SEO firm will help you add more specific, location-based, and less competitive keyword phrases to your campaign so that you will have the best possible chance of reaching the potential customers in your area of service.
Ongoing Analysis
Once your initial keyword research phase is complete, that doesn’t mean your SEO strategy is locked into those keywords for good. It’s your Charleston SEO firm’s job to constantly monitor how your web pages are performing in the search results, and depending on that performance, your campaign manager may recommend dropping some keyword phrases, adding new ones, or devoting more attention to phrases that appear to be particularly successful for you. Once your campaign has been active for a while, Google will provide a wealth of information about its performance, and a great Charleston SEO firm knows how to organize all of that information and use it to generate recommendations to make your campaign as successful as possible.
Make sure your SEO campaign is built on a great foundation by putting experts in charge of the critical keyword research phase. We’re ready to tell you more about this and the many other aspects of SEO and digital marketing that can give your website long-term success online.
