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How can I find keywords for my website?

15 Jan

Want to refine, improve, and optimise your online marketing tactics?

Then start thinking like a customer!

Today we’re going to discuss the importance of keywords and how you can find the right words to optimise your site, draw in more, in-market traffic, and convert users.

Feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to begin? We can help! Contact our SEO agency in Melbourne and Brisbane today to learn more about the strategy behind researching and choosing keywords for your digital strategy.

Choosing keywords

What are keywords?

When you write online for your business, it needs to achieve a lot of goals.

It should be easy to read (particularly on a mobile) and persuasive, educational, and helpful.

It should also highlight your strengths and clearly explain the benefit for your customer. As we say, your website doesn’t just tell a customer what you can do. It tells a customer what you can do for them.

Another consideration to make when writing web copy is aligning your content with what prospective customers are looking for when using Google.

That way your landing pages can appear in Google searches because of a match between your copy and someone’s search bar. A customer is asking a question. So can you (and your website) provide the answer?

How do I use Google keyword planner for my blog?

To access Google Keyword Planner, you can create an ad campaign for your website through Google Ads.

Set up a Google Ads account by accessing the website here.

Set up a campaign and answer questions to assist the algorithm in understanding what you’re trying to advertise.

If you want to skip the ad campaign steps and want to just find keywords, you can click “Keyword Planner” under the “Planning” tab.

Here, you’ll get to enter keywords that you want to target that are related to your business.

You might not know where to begin but try to not get bogged down by the complexities. For now, we suggest starting with basic, broad keywords.

Say you’re a plumber. Try “plumber Melbourne” or “hot water plumber”. Once you’ve input these terms, you’ll be provided with a list of related keywords, as well as their average monthly search, and more.

You will likely see that broader keywords will have a higher average monthly search, while more niche keywords will have a lower search volume. This is all relative and is an important factor we look at when selecting the most appropriate and relevant keywords for your website.

If you are a new business, for example, we may suggest starting with low hanging fruit; that is, more specific, long-tail keywords with a smaller search volume. In most cases, broader keywords with higher searches are much more competitive, and thus can take longer to rank for. Over time, we may progress into more competitive keywords.

SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, and results are not overnight. It’s a slow and sustainable process designed to turn your website into your business’s most valuable asset.

Location

If you deliver services to specific locations across a city or state, we strongly recommend looking at the searches for a range of suburbs.

That way, you can assess suburbs you want to work in as well as suburbs that have a good search volume, and come up with a list that meets these two criteria.

From here, you can create location-specific pages that each target certain suburb keywords.

Negative keywords

Did you know that when creating Google Ads, you can also choose keywords that you do NOT want to rank for?

For example, if you are a glasses store, you can opt out of searches related to drinking glasses, in order to refine and better target your ads.

Unfortunately, no such feature exists for general keyword ranking, however, there are a few tricks you can use if you are bringing in unwanted traffic from an irrelevant keyword:

Try rewriting the content on the page that is ranking for the unwanted keyword
Reoptimise the most important tags on the page including the title tag, H1, H2, and meta description
You may consider removing and redirecting the page if it is an old service you no longer offer (or in fact a service you no longer want to offer)

Search network

Even though it is a Google tool, you can also explore keywords on other search engines like Bing or Yahoo.

Google may control 91% of the market, but you may find hidden opportunities and untapped potential by optimising for the next two most popular search engines.

Google keyword planner

What metrics should I look for when choosing keywords?

Obviously, the first step you want to take when choosing keywords is ensuring that the keyword is relevant and applicable to your business. There are several other important factors you should consider when selecting keywords.

Average monthly searches

The number of searches per month is based on the average over the past 12 months.

This is important to know as it might be good to have a quick review of your keywords every 12-24 months to see if the number of searches has changed considerably, which may help you uncover new opportunities.

Keyword difficulty

Some SEO tools have this fantastic feature that can tell you at a glance how competitive a keyword is. As we mentioned above, more generic keywords with higher search volumes are generally more competitive.

If you are a new website or have a low marketing budget, you may like to start with low-medium competition keywords, which usually have lower average monthly search volumes.

Cost-per-click or suggested bid

While we’re discussing organic SEO, rather than paid search ads, cost-per-click is still an insightful metric to take note of.

It can give you a great indication of how much a competitor may have to pay in order to jump above you, in the organic results, and be displayed as a paid ad.

Need help choosing keywords? Not sure where to start?

iformat can help!

We love helping businesses by uncovering the exact searches that people are using in order to find their products or services. While no one knows your business better than you, we often find that most small business owners are truly impressed with the data we can uncover.

We find that what you think people are searching for versus what they are actually searching for can vary considerably, and it’s this data that can help unlock so much hidden potential!

iformat is an Australian SEO agency in Brisbane and Melbourne. We work with businesses all across Australia, including Sydney and Adelaide, and support growing businesses by helping them optimise their website and drive more (and more targeted) traffic towards their products and services.

We have worked with many types of businesses, from tradies like plumbers and electricians to law firms, accountants, and bookkeepers, as well as a range of eCommerce businesses who want to increase their online sales.

Contact iformat today by calling our Melbourne office on (03) 8842 1250, our Brisbane office on (07) 3732 6522, or by filling out this form. Tell us a little about your business as well as your digital marketing goals!