When it comes to writing quality content for your website, ad campaigns, social media profiles, newsletters, and emails, it’s important to consider what keywords you are targeting. Depending on your industry, you should implement relevant keywords within all of your content to boost SEO performance and drive more traffic to your website.

For instance, if you owned a pet shop, you could want to use keywords that are relevant to your pet products and services. You also want to factor in which keywords that you don’t want to use. You wouldn’t add keywords related to cats if your pet shop catered specifically to dogs, would you?

So, first things first, consider the right factors to determine which keywords would work best for marketing your business online. Let’s take a closer look at what these factors entail.

Think About Your Target Audience

When considering what keywords to utilize within your content, you always want to think about the customer first.

Who is your target audience? What are their interests? Where are they located? How do I keep them engaged? What do I say to persuade them to choose my business over my competitors?

These are all valid questions to consider when trying to understand your target audience. Identify your target audience by answering these questions while also putting yourself in their shoes.

Thinking like your customer is just as important as thinking about who your customers are. Consider what they would search for when conducting a relevant search of a business in your industry. Ask yourself, “if I wanted to find this product or service, what would I type into Google?”

Answering this question is essential to understanding and thinking like your customers. Once you’ve gained clear insight of how to answer these questions, then you’re well on your way towards creating the perfect content with the right keywords.

Perform A Competitor Analysis

As a business owner, you’ll always have some level of competition. No matter what your industry is, there is always someone else out there that is trying to outdo you. This is why it’s always a good idea to perform a thorough competitor analysis so that you can stay one step ahead of the competition.

You know what they say – “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” Keep a watchful eye on what your competitors are doing in all aspects of their business, especially when it comes to their online presence.

This way, you can implement your own strategy that is more effective than your competitors. Remember, you never want to copy your competitors’ marketing structure. That would simply be tacky and unprofessional. Instead, take their strategy and reconstruct it into a stronger, more comprehensive plan that your target audience can resonate with on a deeper level.

Pay close attention to their headlines and metadata to help you identify which specific keywords your competitors are using. This will help you develop new ideas on what you could use for your marketing tactic, as well as what you probably shouldn’t use to avoid a copycat situation.

Conduct Keyword Research

Before developing a marketing strategy, you want to make sure that you conduct thorough research. Utilize the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to research potential target keywords. These keyword research tools can help you gather the data on Google trends, keyword search volumes, similar keywords, keyword competition, and so much more.

Make a list of all of the keywords that rank highly on the search engines and figure out a way to implement them within your content naturally. This process is a lot easier said than done. It typically takes a skilled professional to create content for a business.

Utilize Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords describe a combination of three or more words or phrases. Long tail keywords are known for attracting more relevant traffic to your website and are much easier to rank well on than short tail keywords. However, they do tend to boast lower search volumes and are slightly less competitive. Choose long tail keywords to specify your products or services.

Carefully Analyze Your Data Results

When analyzing your results, be sure to consider all of the factors discussed in this blog. Look at trending keywords or keywords phrases, as well as keywords your competitors are using. Gain a clear understanding of how to use long tail keywords within your content, including your headlines and metadata.

Insert your keywords within your website’s landing pages, social media posts, press releases, and blog posts. Remember, the more keywords that are within your content, the easier it will be for your customers to find you.