It can be challenging to get your business noticed in online search results by potential clients and customers.
You can face a lot of competition from other local businesses and all the “background noise” of online discussions. So how are you supposed to stand out and appear on the first page or two of the search results?
One critical aspect of getting better search results is choosing the right keywords for your website.
A few alterations in phrasing can mean the difference between your website appearing on the fourth page and the first page of Google’s search results!
What Are Keywords?
It’s important first to define what keywords are in the SEO (search engine optimization) language. In terms of search engines, a keyword is any search term entered on Google (or another search engine) that has a results page where websites are listed. Whenever that particular word or phrase is found on a relevant website, Google will bring the site up on the search results.
Website owners and SEO professionals can use these keywords to optimize a website in the hopes of ranking at the top of Google’s results. If a person searches for “mechanics near me,” for example, Google will favor websites that naturally integrate that phrase into the text on their website.
Why Are Keywords So Important?
More than ever, people are seeking fast answers to their problems. A large majority of the search engine results that are clicked on appear only on the first page.
In fact, 67.6% of all clicks are on the first 5 organic (non-advertisement) results. If you want people to discover and choose your business more often, you need to appear as early as possible on these result pages.
This is one key reason why keywords are important for SEO. By naturally integrating keywords into your website, you are considerably more likely to appear in the first pages and results Google provides their searchers with. This isn’t really a group you can ignore or hope for the best with, either. Google’s organic search results are responsible for a whopping 59.2% of all web traffic in the entire world. These are billions of clicks across all segments of society.
It’s time to take advantage of this knowledge and leverage the best possible keywords on your website to boost your number of visitors. In particular, it’s vital to use strong long-tail keywords that utilize a specific phrase rather than a word or two.
For example, there’s a lot of competition for the keyword “hotels,” or “ice cream,” or “cleaning service.” Targeting long-tail keywords like “best cleaning service in Albany” or “where to buy ice cream in San Diego,” in contrast, will put your website in front of a smaller and more relevant audience.
Besides, mobile queries using phrases like “where to buy X near me” have grown by over 200% from 2017-2019.
Why You Should Hire A Professional
It’s important to use your keywords wisely. You can’t just “stuff” your website with the same keyword in hopes of ranking higher. Google will notice that, and you could be hit with what’s known as a blacklist penalty.
Being blacklisted would remove your page from the search engine results, gravely impacting your business’s potential reach.
Proper keyword usage involves more than the number of times per page, as well. You must also know what phrasing works best for search engines and how to include all this optimization in naturalistic text that drives visitors to the most important sections of your website.
Before even beginning to write your SEO text, you’ll also have to conduct keyword research. It takes time and training to know which keywords on Google are performing well for your business sector.
With all this being true, there are three major reasons why you should hire a professional to handle your keywords:
It saves you valuable time and money: Conducting keyword research, experimenting with possible keywords, and figuring out how to implement the keywords into a broader SEO game plan is a time-consuming effort, especially if you’re not used to it. Meanwhile, you’ll be losing money from operation overhead since you won’t be making the most of your web activity.
You’ll get the best results: An SEO professional can use their experience to figure out what is quickly and isn’t working regarding your SEO. Guesswork and missed details will decrease, and the all-important clicks and page views will increase.
SEO and keywords change over time: Google and other search engines frequently change their algorithms secretively. This means that the type of SEO and keywords that can boost your site ranking won’t always remain the same. By working with a professional, you retain the ability to stay agile and keep up with the competition - all without putting much more of your own precious time into making the changes.
SEO Results With Zoek
When it comes to keywords and SEO, Zoek knows what needs to be done to get you ranking high on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Our client, Moonlight Animal Hospital, had almost no internet presence before we started working with them. They needed to have a full website built while establishing an online presence and building traffic to their site so that potential patients in their area could find them.
Once their website went live on June 1st, it only took 3 weeks to start getting over 400 unique visits to their website each day.
Not only that, but they were now ranking second and third in their area for pet-related search inquiries!
We knew the long-tail keywords that needed to be embedded into their website content to get them seen by their target audience, and it didn’t take long for search engines to find their site and recommend it to those consumers.
Conclusion
As you can see, it pays to have the right people on your side when it comes to SEO. Here at Zoek, we understand the importance of keyword selection and usage for organizations of all types and sizes.
You get access to an experienced and educated team of SEO and web development professionals by working with us. We’d be happy to help you figure out what keywords are most important to your search results as part of developing a full SEO game plan for your site.
To book a free consultation with Zoek or learn more about our SEO bundles, click here. We look forward to helping you!
Ryan Sargent is a Content Specialist at Zoek, an SEO, Web Design, and Digital Marketing Agency that assists small and medium-sized businesses with their online footprint. He’s been a writer for over 10 years, handling everything from pop culture coverage to video descriptive services to marketing copy and SEO text. Outside of work, Ryan also spends time as a game designer and podcaster, and enjoys watching movies and visiting new places with his wife.