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We talk a lot about focusing on your keywords when writing content for your website and blog or when using services like Google Ads, but perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves - where do you even get keywords for your business?
Start with Primary Keywords
The first step is to develop an initial set of core keywords also known as primary keywords. These should be phrases that closely match the products or services you offer. Try to create a list of about eight to 12. To help you come up with them, consider these questions:
How would you summarise your company to someone that has never heard of it?
What problems does your company provide solutions for?
What questions do potential customers ask about your business?
Focusing on user intent is key when selecting primary keywords. This means understanding the motivation behind a search—whether it’s informational, navigational, or transactional. For instance, a user searching for “buy sustainable furniture in Dublin” clearly has transactional intent and is likely close to making a purchase.
ACTION: Fill Out Your List
After establishing your primary list, the next step is to gather secondary keywords. While these should still be very relevant to your business, they are a broader mix of terms that incorporate more niche products and services or specific questions. You should typically aim for anywhere between 20 - 60 secondary keywords.
Don’t be afraid to use long-tail keywords and location-based keywords in your secondary keyword list. You might be tempted to stick to popular, generic terms to do with your sector, for example, ‘Furniture’ may seem like an attractive keyword given the high search volume, but this also means that competition will be very intense. With over 70% of searches deemed long-tail, it is better to focus on more specific keywords such as ‘Four Poster Beds Dublin’.
Additionally, with the rise of voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, searches have become more conversational, such as “What’s the best eco-friendly bed in Dublin?” This means that optimising for natural, question-based queries is essential.
Local SEO plays an even bigger role now, with more users searching for businesses and services near them. Consider incorporating hyperlocal keywords like “bed shop near me” or “custom furniture in Dublin” to ensure you capture these potential customers.
Use the Right Tools
There are a plethora of tools at your disposal to help in your keyword research. We’ve discussed our favourite, Google’s Keyword Planner. It can generate a huge list of keywords based on your primary list and also gives you the monthly search volume, the level of competition, and the recommended bid for each keyword on Google Ads. This tool is free and one we use all the time.
Some other tools include Answer The Public which generates dozens of questions based on a single keyword, and Keyword Tool which lists hundreds of different auto-complete answers for a keyword gathered from Google, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, Bing, and the App Store.
Review and Refine Your Keywords
Once you have your list of primary and secondary keywords, it’s good practice to do a review and remove the irrelevant, overly generic, or unsuitable ones. Consider the following questions when doing your review:
Is this keyword relevant to the content on my site?
Will someone with this query find what they’re looking for on my site?
Will the traffic from these keywords result in sales or other conversions?
If the answers to these questions are all ‘Yes!’ then you’re good to go, if not, then it might be time to re-think!
If you’d like to know more about what Together Digital can do for your business, get in touch with one of our strategists today!
