Your SEO search phrases can be determined in many different ways. You can perform keyword research, you can look at your analytics and logs to see the phrases that people already use, and you can use your gut and experience.
That last one can really lead us astray.
You might think you know what you should be ranking for, isn’t it common sense and obvious? No. No, it is not.
When your most-wanted search phrase hurts you
A client reached out over Christmas to discuss their new project where they wanted to rank #1 for a specific phrase.
Nothing unusual about that, except I am 100{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} sure that ranking for that phrase, right now, in their current phase of development, would be a distraction and waste of resources rather than helpful to their launch.
Ranking for some phrases brings in zero traffic. The work involved in ranking for those phrases is an opportunity cost at best, or worse actually works against ranking for what you should really be going after.
I don’t want to call this client out so let’s pretend their search phrase was “billionaire matchmaking”:
- Is this a phrase that your target market actually put into search engines?
- Rather than attracting single, lonely wealthy people, who do you think this phrase would really attract?
Search phrases are not about you
As I get back into consulting and providing services, it is something that has been on my mind for this website.
What we have to remember is the search phrases are not necessarily about what we want to be known for, but what people who we can most help are looking for. Two different things!
Back in the early 2000s I decided my field was “New Media”, but that isn’t really a term popularly used any longer 20+ years later. For a while I was known for blogging, then “internet marketing” (a phrase that attracted get-rich-quick folks for a period).
What are people looking for today? That is something I need to work out if my mortgage is going to get paid!
How to find your most-wanted search phrase(s)
As alluded to above, if you want to find your actual target search phrases, you need to go to the source(s):
- Your paying customers – People who have attracted successfully and gone on to pay you are the best source of information because they are who you would love to clone in future. Of course filtering out the people you would rather not work with. If they came via a referral, how were you described to them? What did they describe when they asked their friend for advice?
- Your analytics – How do people find you before filling in contact forms? What do people search for before landing on your website?
- Keyword tools – Turn to the keyword tools after doing the above. Of course, if you are starting out brand new then you don’t have paying customers yet and probably little in the way of analytics, but you do have competitors so mine their websites for seed ideas.
For the third item, do not be mislead by promises of millions of page views – just because there are lots of searches for a phrase, doesn’t mean your website is going to rank #1, it doesn’t mean all of those searches are relevant to you (eg. geographically), or that many of the people searching convert into customers (eg. probably not lonely billionaires).
Do not ignore social media and forums for sources of search phrases and keywords. One of the things people do in these conversations is ask questions and gripe about their problems.
For example:
- How to / How do I …?
- Where can I find …?
- Any suggestions/recommendations for …?
- Anyone know …?
You might even get some work by replying if you craft your message correctly!
Bottom Line
Search phrases are meant to match what people are looking for, not some internal industry term or for the most part even your brand and positioning.
Yes, of course you want to be found in search for your brand names, and maybe even for your tagline, but those are for people who are already aware of you – getting people to interact with you based around their wants, needs, problems and desires is the main goal.