If you’re an SEO newbie and are creating any kind of written content for your business – whether it’s website copy, blog posts, or social media captions – it can be easy to skip over the keyword targeting process. With so much information on keywords available but no idea where to start, you might be tempted to simply bypass the whole thing and focus on writing what you want to say.
Most of us have been there at some point in our marketing journeys. We’d like to think that just because we’re selling an amazing product or making good content, people will magically find our business. Unfortunately, internet search engines make it a little more complicated than that. That’s where keyword targeting comes in.
If you’re still unsure whether using targeted keywords is worth your time, keep reading. Here’s why you need to start using them in your marketing strategy … well, yesterday.
Keywords are what connects your audience to your business
Think of it this way: Not using keyword targeting is like a musician about to put on the concert of a lifetime, but they never tell their fans about it. Sure, they put up some posters and maybe make an announcement aimed at the general public, but they never make a buzz about it on social media or alert their email list. What’s going to happen? No matter how good the performance is, it’s going to fall flat without the right people to appreciate it – and fans are going to be pretty disappointed when they find out what they missed out on.
That might not be the best analogy, but you get the point. The same goes for content marketing. Getting incredible website traffic doesn’t just happen. While having quality content is a must, it’s not going to be effective if it doesn’t reach its target audience. It will likely get lost in the sea of online content.
If you’re marketing to everyone, you’re really marketing to no one. Keyword targeting ensures your content reaches the people who want or need it most.
Keywords help increase traffic to your website
You might be wondering, how does keyword targeting connect audiences to my business? One major way is by helping your website rank higher when they search for answers on the internet.
Targeted keywords are a crucial component of any SEO strategy. Google and other search engines will look at this information to decide whether your content is relevant to a certain search query and how the page should rank for that keyword. That’s what determines how well a web page performs in searches.
By targeting the right keywords in your content, you’ll also establish your business as an authority in your industry and gain the trust of leads and customers. This can lead to greater visibility as people spread the word through social media.
Keywords give you insight into what your audience wants.
You might be 100% confident in the products or services your business sells. But if you could peek inside your customers’ brains and find out how they truly feel, would that influence how you run your business? If your marketing strategy wasn’t totally aligned with what your customers want, would you make changes to it?
Keyword targeting helps us learn about who our audience is and what they desire. Think of it as a bullseye that you can direct your content towards.
After you’ve completed some keyword research, you should have a better idea of what your audience is looking for in a brand, a product, or content – and tweak your marketing strategy to align with that.
Key Takeaways
If you want to make sure the right people find out about your business – and ultimately see more short-term and long-term organic search traffic to your site – it’s time to roll up your sleeves and dig into keyword targeting.
For a helpful overview on what keyword targeting is and how to get started, check out our post Understanding Keyword Targeting. We promise it’s not as overwhelming as it seems.
OR…
You could leave the dirty work to us. We live and breathe SEO and are ready to chat about how we can help your site rank way, way higher on Google. Contact us to book a Brand Discovery session so we can use our team’s superpowers to help your business grow.