Ha! This almost feels like a trick! And that probably sounds completely rude for as you begin to read this article, but there is a really crazy point here when it comes to choosing profitable keywords to rank your business for…
IT IS REALLY SIMPLE!
Yeah. It really is.
Here’s the thing that we run across in my company all of the time. I get business owners coming to me frustrated as heck because they have heard that SEO (search engine optimization) is so amazing and can really help them to grow their business in getting a steady stream of new customers.
For the most part… they aren’t wrong.
The thing is they frequently end up coming to us after they have tried one or more other “agencies” that have promised them the moon and stars and been unable to deliver.
Here’s their trick.
They come to you saying that they will get you ranked for a whole bunch of keywords. They promise a lot more traffic to your website and they almost always have a way of tracking it to prove it. After their sales pitch is done, it sounds so good you can’t help but buy-in.
Often you have just signed off on a 6-month or one-year contract at anywhere between $250 and $1000 per month, but you’re not worried because they are promising all of this wonderful traffic.
So they get started.
Sixty days in and you are loving the reports that show growing amounts of traffic coming to your website and you are thinking that maybe tomorrow the phone will start ringing more.
Ninety days and you’re seeing still increasing numbers on the reports but the phone still really hasn’t been ringing any more than before and you’re wondering if the numbers are wrong. So you call your account rep.
They assure you that the numbers ARE correct and they send you a report showing all of the amazing keywords they have your website ranked for.
So you feel a little bit better and you keep paying them hoping that the phone will start ringing. Or somebody will email you or come through the door.
Now you’re at five months and the reports show your website traffic is higher than ever but you’re still not getting any upticks in new business.
At this point, you decide to check somewhere else and find out if the information is right.
Whether it is Google Analytics or some keyword aggregator, you figure out that the amount of traffic and the keyword rankings are correct, but the fact remains that you’re still not getting the new customers you were hoping for.
Somehow, you end up contacting us. After a little research, we are able to tell you exactly where the problem is.
Now you feel frustrated, taken advantage of, and probably rather pissed off. And you should be.
So what was the problem?
The keywords.
Yes you had massive amounts of new traffic coming to your website and yes you have a hundred new keywords that your site is ranking for, but the fact is they were all the wrong keywords and they are generating a bunch of traffic that is just traffic… not customers.
What do I mean?
I mean that there is a big difference between keywords that just generate traffic and keywords that generate new customers.
This is easiest to explain by giving you an example.
I had a potential client come to me. They owned an IT firm. It was a franchise and as per their franchise terms, the corporate office was going to be doing much of their SEO but they were encouraged to expand their marketing in their local areas on their own.
This client came to me because they were literally getting 10k to 15k hits on their site every single month but only getting maybe one or two phone calls or contact forms for people actually wanting to do business with them.
We did the research and it turns out that the corporate office had literally thousands of keywords ranking but almost none of them were “money” keywords.
Specifically, most of the keywords were things like “how to archive emails in outlook” or “how to edit your email signature.” There were literally thousands of keywords along these lines.
Yes, they generated a lot of traffic to the website and the blog content for that was great, but the problem is that the people looking for that information were NOT looking for a company to hire for managed IT services. They just needed a tutorial for their email.
Do you see what I’m getting at?
If the company had been ranking for “managed IT services near me” it would have been generating traffic that was people looking for services they could pay money to utilize.
“How to archive emails in outlook” is NOT a money keyword. It does NOT generate new business. Just a bustle of pointless traffic.
It’s kind of like saying that you want to go fishing for a shark so you take a little tiny fishing rod and hook and go out in your local freshwater stream and then get frustrated that you didn’t catch a shark.
Here’s the point behind all of this…
When it comes to choosing keywords to spend time and money to get your website ranked for, you need to be CERTAIN that those keywords are MONEY keywords!
You need to KNOW that they are generating the type of traffic that looking to spend money on the products or services you offer.
SO… how do you do it?
Well, quite frankly, you use common sense.
As you research keywords to utilize, always ask this one question, “is someone who uses this search phrase in the frame of mind to spend money on this service or product?”
If the answer is yes then you have a money keyword, if it’s not, then you don’t!
Now, just to clarify, there are times that you will utilize keywords that are not directly money keywords just because you are putting out valuable information and building credibility.
This article is a great example.
You may never hire us to do your SEO, but the fact that you read this and it helps you with your business may give you reason to trust us and refer a friend or a colleague to us at a later point in time.
That is credibility.
Not to mention, we just like helping people, even if they are not our clients.
BUT… the whole point of this is to help you recognize that choosing keywords has to be strategic.
If you are running a blog and you make money by offering ad space to advertisers so you HAVE to have high traffic, then yes, you can use keywords that just generate traffic. However, if you are a business and you are looking for paying customers, then you have to be very particular about the keywords you go after.
Let’s face it, ranking your website on Google just isn’t usually very easy and if you’re going to spend time or money to do it, you want to make sure that you are getting the result you want.
So what are you going to do again?
You’re going to ask a simple question for every keyword you choose.
What is that question?
“Is someone who uses this search phrase in the frame of mind to spend money on this service or product?”
Perfect!
Thank you for taking the time to read this article! Please let us know if it helped you!
