The Great Keyword Hunt:
Making it easier for customers to find you online

By: Laynie Tzena

Special to Hearst Media Services

When you look for a product or service online, you type or “key” words into a search engine. Words used to retrieve information from an electronic database are called “keywords.” To make sure your customers can find you online, you need to use the appropriate keywords in your advertising—the very words your potential customers are keying in. But how do you know what those keywords are?

1. Start your search for the magic keywords by doing your own online search. Be specific. Imagine you were going on a trip and wanted some comfortable walking shoes. You wouldn’t just key in “shoes.” You might begin with “walking shoes,” or “rubber-soled shoes,” but if you were leaving on that trip in a day or two and just remembered you’d better get some shoes, you’d add, “stores open late.” Think of all the important aspects of those shoes you need, and key in the three- or four-word phrase that most succinctly summarizes those things. That’s called a “long tail keyword phrase.” When customers are ready to buy, as opposed to “just looking,” they use long tail keyword phrases.

2. Pretend you are a customer looking for the products and services your company sells. How would your customer describe them in order to search for them online?

3. Get an outside opinion. Ask your family and friends who they see as your competition, and which words they’d choose when looking for your products and services online.

4. Now that you’ve expanded your awareness of the competition, look at some of those competitors’ websites, noting the words they use on their sites, especially those they use over and over. The words they repeat are the ones they have learned will drive traffic to their website.

5. If you’ve been in business for a while, ask your customers to help. Tell them you appreciate their business and value their input. Say you’re updating your marketing material and wanted to ask them a couple of questions: first, how they originally found you, and second, how they might look for products and services like yours today. Would they look online? If so, what are the words they might put into a search engine in order to find you?

6. Once you have some ideas as to potential keywords, try some of the online resources available. Google’s “Wonder Wheel” can help you find popular keyword phrases. Wonder Wheel is easily found through Google’s home page. Look in the left margin for “Other search tools.” As you scroll down, you’ll see “Wonder Wheel.” Select “Wonder Wheel” and you’ll arrive at a page with your keyword phrase at the center of a wheel of related phrases. Click on any of these keyword phrases to narrow your search. When you’re done, write down the phrases that seem most appropriate for your business.

Google’s Keyword Tool not only helps you find other related keywords, but also provides data about competition for these keywords, global monthly searches, local monthly searches, and search trends.

There are also paid services like Wordtracker.com.
In fact, there are lots of tools out there, along with online advertising schools, which you’ll find by doing a search for—guess what—“best keywords for online advertising.” Whatever tools you use, keep an eye out for keyword phrases most of the competition isn’t using. Look also for phrases ranked high on the Keyword Effectiveness Index (“KEI,” for short) and lots of traffic.

7. Once you find the best keywords to use, be sure to include them in your ads, on your website, in articles you write—basically, whenever you communicate with your customer.

Remember, keywords are words keyed in by people just like you looking for products and services like yours. As you tune into the language they’re likely to use in looking for you, you’re also getting to know your customers better, and that’s always a good thing.