Do you understand SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization. Google is an example of a search engine. Yahoo is another search engine. When you do SEO, you are optimizing your website so that a search engine, such as Google can easily find you (i.e. your website).
To do so you must understand keywords. When you go to google.com and type in what you are looking for in the box, what you type is considered a keyword. So, if your ideal client goes online and searches for the services you offer, what will they type in? You want to spend time researching this information so that your website comes up in the Google search results when a potential client is looking for the services you offer.
I attended SHINE this fall and James Roche taught a session on how to do effective keyword research. The video covers pay per click advertisers for particular keywords (these are the results listed on the right hand side of a google results page), the average price paid per click for a keyword (and how you can use this to determine if it’s a profitable keyword for you to use or not), search volume for a particular keyword (and the best range to stay within for better results). The general guidelines shared by James in the video are:
Pay Per Click advertisers of between 10 to 50
Cost per click between $1 to $2.50
Search volume between 15,000 to 80,000 per month
In the video he goes into more details so you better understand why and how to apply the above guidelines.
You can use this research not only on your website, but when you work to title products, programs, blog posts, etc.
The video shared at SHINE has made available to everyone for a limited time. Click here to view the video. Hopefully you are reading this before it’s taken down! James starts going into the process around minute 10 of the video, so you can scroll ahead to this section if you want to jump right into the meat of what to look for when doing keyword research.
The keyword search tool he uses is http://www.keywordspy.com.
If you are going to be profitable online you have to clearly identify what people want and what they are paying for. Keyword research allows you to obtain this data and then apply it to your website, products, services, blog posts, etc. to optimize your website for search engines.
Keep in mind, people general type phrases or enter search words with the same wording they’d use when speaking.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson
P.S. Right around minute 23 James goes into a great explanation of how to set up an opt-in box on your website to grow your list!