When you drill right down to it, SEO is about helping websites build traffic through keywords. If you’re unfamiliar with what a keyword is, refer back to our post on how to choose the right keywords. For example, if you owned a bicycle repair shop, a keyword you might want to integrate into your website could be “bicycle tires”, or “bike repairs”. However, selecting the right keyword sets to use on your website is not as simple as picking out the first words or phrases that come to mind about what you sell.
A better way to go about the process of keyword selection is to start by describing your target market. Using the bicycle repair shop example, the most important factor in keyword selection for traditional businesses is to consider the geographic component. If your bicycle repair shop is located in Vancouver, you’ll most likely want to specify the keyword by including “Vancouver” in the phrase, so instead of using the keyword “bike repairs”, try using “bike repairs Vancouver”. Now at this point you might be thinking why you wouldn’t just compete for “bike repairs” as a more general keyword to capitalize on much more traffic. Well, here are a few reasons:
- Though your site would receive dramatically more traffic from a #1 Google position for “bike repairs” than it would for “bike repairs Vancouver”, 99% of the traffic you received from the first keyword would be of no use to you unless you sold to a global market or had a higher-end website that incorporated advertising revenue as part of the marketing strategy.
- Broadly speaking, you would be competing with around 3.5 million other pages for the keyword “bike repairs”, versus a much more manageable 271,000 for “bike repairs Vancouver”. This would mean seeing results much faster for a less competitive keyword once implementing your professional SEO strategy.
- Cost. To execute a workable SEO strategy for a highly competitive keyword like “bike repairs” would involve a lot more time and effort than a strategy executed for a more specific keyword like “bike repairs Vancouver”.
Ultimately, it all boils down to your market. If your market is located in a specific geographic area, definitely consider using a geographic specifier in your keyword sets. It will help ensure faster results with your SEO strategy as well as provide your website visitors with the search results they need.
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
Hi Polprav,
We’d be more than happy to allow you to quote our post for a link back to us…glad to hear you’re reading us all the way from Russia – see you back here soon!