How relevant are the keywords you’re targeting?
Think about this for a moment.
It’s easy to get excited about the search demand of keywords.
The volume of keywords oftentimes leads marketers to want to target terms that really aren’t appropriate for their business.
But they target them because of the traffic potential.
What good is it to target keywords that aren’t very relevant to your business?
What good is it to target keywords that you’ll have a hard time getting visibility for?
What good is it to target keywords that will not convert?
One of the things I like to encourage clients to do, especially at this time of the year, is to review their keyword list.
I want to encourage you to do this before the end of the year.
I’m positive that you’ll find a portion of the list of keywords you track, the volume drivers, are terms you either do not rank for, and haven’t ranked for in well over a year, and/or are terms you have no business targeting in the first place.
Yes, I get it. Targeting it seemed like a good idea at one point.
You were swayed by the traffic potential.
Well, let me ask you this…
When people search with those keywords, do you have a page on your website that will satisfy their search?
Do you have an offering on your site that matches those keywords?
Do you even have pages that are about those keywords?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, are those keywords ones you really want to be targeting? And tracking? And basing your traffic potential on…?
You see, this is why you really don’t want to view keywords simply as terms you seek to rank on number 1 for.
Keywords are not just keywords.
They have a link to your revenue.
Behind the keywords you target are people. Real people.
The end result of targeting keywords isn’t to rank on number 1 for them. It’s to service people. Real people.
It’s people we aim to attract. And we aim to attract them by targeting the keywords they use to search for something.
These keywords have to be relevant to your business.
The relevancy is a must.
It doesn’t matter how huge the search volume of a keyword is, if it is not relevant, it really shouldn’t be targeted.
Why is the keyword relevancy a must?
Here’s why…
When you target keywords that are relevant to your business, you’re able to understand what a searcher seeks when they search with those keywords, ensuring you have the pages that delivers what they search for.
By targeting keywords that are relevant to your business, you’re able to understand the intent behind the keywords in order to anticipate what your targeted audience seeks.
By this I mean, you’re able to anticipate the other terms your targeted audience would use as part of their search cycle.
Understanding your targeted audiences’ search cycle plays a part in the way the content on your site is organised.
Yes, you’re able to deem all of this, and more, just from targeting keywords that are relevant to your business.
If a keyword isn’t relevant to your business, you really have no business targeting it.
There are plenty of terms you could target. It doesn’t even matter how obscure your business is, if it is a thing, there’ll be a search demand for it.
If there is a search demand offline, you can bet there’s a search demand online. So there is a search demand for it.
Do you know what targeting inappropriate keywords leads to…?
It leads to wastage!
Wastage of time.
Wastage of resources.
Wastage of your budget.
What good is it to spend your budget on creating content that isn’t relevant?
It’s simply going to lead to content on your site that doesn’t have a purpose.
Simply driving traffic to your site is really not enough of a purpose.
If the audience you’re attracting isn’t a targeted one, do you really need to be attracting them to your site?
Do you need to be creating content for them?
Do you really need to aim to service them?
Simply aiming to draw any and all audiences is not marketing.
Marketing is being purposeful.
It’s being strategic.
It’s having a target in mind.
Are you targeting your audience with the keywords that you are targeting…?
If you thought SEO was all about keywords and rankings, I’m delighted to tell you that it is not.
It’s a lot more involved than this.
There’s an Art and a Science to this here SEO thing.
Ranking for keywords should not be an accident.
So, towards the end this quarter, have a look at the list of keywords you’re targeting.
Ask yourself, are these keywords relevant to us.
If they are not, consider cleaning out your targeted list to give you a renewed focus for the New Year.
