SEO breaks down into two big pieces: one is the organization and structure of your website (links, pages, images, etc.) and the copy that focuses on and includes keywords. You need to prioritize both in order to have a solid SEO strategy, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. Your SEO strategy isn’t a one and done, it’s ever-evolving and changing; you need to constantly review, plan, and attack keywords to get the most hits to your website.
Sometimes, figuring out keywords and phrases is pretty easy. You can knock out some popular ones if you just think about your product, services, and industry. Example: we’re a marketing firm in Los Angeles, so we could easily assume “marketing firm in LA” would be a popular search (it is). We could also try things related to our services, such as, “Los Angeles SEO company,” and we’d get some hits. Plug those into our website a few times, run some search engine marketing campaigns around i – job all done, right? Nope!
There are plenty of ways people search for information, and it’s up to you to do your research to find out which search terms and phrases are common, popular, and easy to leverage for your website. There are plenty of tools that will give you similar search results to specific keywords that you can then analyze and decide if you want to target. So, you think up keywords on your own, you do some research to find some additional keywords and phrases to target for SEO, and that’s it. Right? Nope again!
Not only do you need to worry about your own keywords on your own website, you need to worry about your favorite keywords on your competitor’s websites – and you need to worry about which keywords they’re targeting on their website! Now you have to see how they’re ranking for those keywords and decide if you are able to take them over and if it’s cost effective to do so.
With some exceptions, the more common the keyword, the harder it’s going to be for you to rank first for it. There’s just too much competition going on all over the place, and it’s an uphill battle to target them. If your first thought is to just go into your website code and jam pack your copy full of keywords, please, don’t. You’re shooting yourself in the foot. Google crawlers and it’s mythical algorithm will penalize you immediately and knock you down the results rankings.
You need to write compelling, believable, and helpful copy for people to read that naturally contains the keywords and phrases you’re targeting. Otherwise, it’s all a waste of time, energy, and money.
To recap:
- Think about your industry, products, and services
- Come up with keywords related to them
- Think up phrases people might search. Instead of “landscaping,” try “does my yard need landscaping?” Then answer that question in the subsequent copy.
- Check your competitors’ sites for keywords and see what they’re doing well, and find out which keywords you can leverage or overtake.
- Plan out the keywords and phrases that will benefit you the most without costing you an arm and a leg.
Or, hire our LA SEO firm to cover all of that work for you. We’ve got an expert team that knows what they’re doing and how to make your website stand out in search engines. SEO requires constant work, and it can be tough to keep up with it, especially if you’re trying to learn the best practices as you go. Give us a call and we’ll discuss how we can take your marketing to the next level.