Most companies or individuals that develop a 'search engine strategy' to rank well in search engine results focus on keywords.
They choose terms they see as important to themselves; their industry, sectors, features, benefits, and products. Although this approach is fine for any company on day one, this strategy rarely works for good rankings in the long term, your customer really doesn't know industry-specific terminology or product names.
To target potential customers we have to think beyond the keywords themselves and focus on your site's content, this must be optimised to improve the customer's journey to reach your website. To do this we do not focus on random keywords we need to identify the intent of the customer when they search, to identify targeted keywords and site content based on that intent rather than guessing the best way to rank well.
Amazingly for all the complexity that is hidden behind a modern search engine, the intent of the user of the search engine can be split into just three categories. By understanding these categories we can choose keywords and information that meets the potential customer's needs rather than our own:
When choosing the keywords and site content for a new search engine optimisation strategy first choose your customers intent from the list above. Your customer may have more than one of the three motivations when searching, but try to focus on one of the three to improve your keyword focus.
Try to map out in your mind the journey the customer would take to find you through a search engine:
By focusing on your customers intent you can optimise your sites pages, products and keywords to improve your chances of ranking based on fact rather than guesswork.
Two Plus Two is a web design company with offices in High Wycombe, we specialise in web design and search engine optimisation. We offer a free consultation call on web design and search engine optimisation for any new project you may require, simply call us today on 01494 730000.