Don’t Fear Keywords

Most business owners shy away from incorporating keywords into their online content due to feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the idea of SEO… It’s time to let that go and….

Embrace the Power of Keywords

Keyword research and SEO can be complex and expensive. But I am going to simplify it for you, it does not need to be scary or break the bank. As a matter of fact, in this article I am going to share a few simple strategies and tools that are not very technical and can have a big impact on your visibility. Increased visibility leads to connections, opportunities, community, and business growth. Plus, it’s all based on learning more about the people you want to connect with and what matters to them. It’s is a beautiful thing.

Keep It Simple

Let’s simplify this process. Let’s NOT talk about SEO, SEM, analytics, organic search and the rest of the terminology that makes your head spin. Instead, let’s talk about who you want to meet, the reason you are doing this work… Here is the list I start with to gain clarity before I get started.

WHO – do I want to connect with? Are they potential clients, vendors, strategic partners, event coordinators, journalists? your perfect clients and what WHY – do I want to connect with them? What value can I bring to them? What issue do they have? Can I solve their problem? Will their audience benefit from being introduced to me?

WHAT – do you want them to know about you? About your work? drives them, what gets them excited or comes up as a struggle for them to the point that they realized that they need YOUR help? You know these words you have heard them 100s of times when you speak with your clients, come up with creative solutions and solve their problems.

Yes do it! Write them down. That was easy wasn’t it? Well you just did Keyword Research 101.

It’s All About Your Target Audience

As you go through this process think about your perfect clients, what they like/dislike, what they read/watch/listen to. Who do they model in their business practices?

This is all valuable intel to gain greater insight into how they think and reach out for help. This will allow you to learn how to listen online to see how they engage and the conversations that they join. How do they naturally use their keywords? The deeper you understand them, the easier it will become for you to use their natural keywords when you create content for your website and social media – allowing them to find YOU. Remember, these are YOUR PERFECT CLIENTS’ KEYWORDS – not yours! It is always about them – not you!

It’s a Continuous Refinement Process

DO NOT stress out about the process and start obsessing about keywords. You will find as you continue to build your business and write content, that you will be updating your keywords every 3 – 4 months for a couple of years. At that point, as your content library grows, you will know which terms are the ones that your perfect clients are using subconsciously and you will inherently know what they react to.

Keep it Conversational

As you add content to your website and to your Social Media platforms, you want to be sure that Google will love your content. Google likes content that is relevant to your business, if you are an accounting firm supporting small businesses, they want to see content that is relatable to that audience.

When you are weaving your keywords into your copy, keep the flow conversational… notice how I used the word Google in this paragraph. Follow these simple rules and you create a body of online content that is Google friendly and helps you to be found by all the right people.

Repurpose Content for Social Media

This is work, it takes an investment of your time or in someone else’s time. Everything costs time, money or both so make the most of the investment in your content by repurposing it. Every article I write is transformed into multiple social media posts. Very simply, I go through the content and create 10 or so social media posts that link back to the article and share on my social media sites. This brings my content into new audiences of my targeted market and works quite well.

When you #ReThinkIt it’s not optional, my question to you is how will you work this into your marketing plan? I want to know, please hop over to my Facebook Page and share or post in the comments section below.