Finding the Right Keywords to Drive Traffic

Whether you have an SEO campaign in place with a digital marketing agency or you’re looking to implement one, it all start with selecting the right keywords. The best way to do this is by making use of some of the free tools that are available to you. One of the most common keyword tools, that’s free of charge, is Google’s AdWords tool.

You will find that this will be even more beneficial to you if you sign in to your Google account. If you don’t have one, simply set up a Gmail account and you’re good to go.
By logging in to your Google account, you will get a lot more information, such as the cost per click on the various keywords that you’re researching.

When starting your keyword analysis, you want to enter a keyword that best describes your business, in your opinion. You want to think of the keyword that your prospects would use to search for a business like yours. You want to select your country to ensure that you’re looking at data for your particular region as well. And select “Exact” on the left side of the page to limit the results to the exact keyword that you’re looking for. The results that will show will refer to the number of people that use that exact phrase during their search, in your specific region.

You want to click on the local monthly searches tab, so you only get the data that refers to the country that you chose. You can even be more detailed in your search results if you want to focus on your local city. All you have to do is put a + sign after your keyword, then add the city.

Having good keywords is great for getting traffic, but what’s even better is having keywords with buyer intent. In other words, you want your keywords to bring in the right kind of traffic that has a high probability of converting to sale. It’s usually your longer keyword phrases (long tail) that will achieve this, which are typically three to four keywords. For example, as a Digital Marketing Agency, a long tail keyword with buyer intent would be Digital Marketing Agency Toronto. As a matter of fact, this is the exact word that we’re using right on our home page.

If you look at the data that the search tool provides, you’ll see the volume of traffic that’s being generated. If it’s low, you have to decide if it’s going to be worth the effort to target that particular keyword phrase. Paying attention to how much competition it is receiving is also vital. Google’s AdWords tools will show you a rank of high, medium, or low. When working with your Internet marketing company, you want to ensure that they’re providing you with a more in-depth competitor analysis that shows you the volume of backlinks and quality of backlinks of each of the top five competitors for each of your keywords. This will give you an understanding of how aggressive you will have to be to rank well.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment.