The Search Never Ends

People can talk about things like “SEO”, “keyword” phrases and other search engine related semantics all day long. But the one thing you can be sure of is that it is a constantly evolving science. In this context, the conversation is about “real customers” the ones who are not just window shopping but are actively looking at buying something. The search here is about finding out who the real customer is. Unfortunately, the more data is looked into, the muddier the waters get. A paid search campaign is a good start to finding those types of customers, however, there are other ways to find out what a paying customer will search for.

There was a time when search engines were just coming online, it was all about volume when using keywords. In fact, the term SEO was not even invented yet. That has all changed. With better, smarter search engines, it is all about intent based searches. While search engines are doing their bit in understanding what a paying customer wants, web designers need to do their homework also. On top of this, the voice based search is changing the game. This has to do with customers doing a big portion of web browsing on smartphones. As much as 55% of people are doing their search using voice and those numbers are only growing.

The following are some tips to distinguish between regular and targeted keyword search.

Know Your People

This may seem like an obvious one, but until you know who you are trying to talk to, you cannot sell. By knowing your customers, it means to really know who they are. This involves looking into what type of questions customers are putting out there and how they articulate their concerns. After all, SEO is all about marketing something, and keywords need to reflect that.

Keyword Tools

There are keyword research tools that can make a marketers life much easier. They can be used to find good phrases or words, to make things go faster. There are tools which are capable of giving information on social media users. The benefit of this is that you know can find out who may be searching for your products. This helps you in hitting the nail on the head when finding out what type of keywords customers are using. This is huge in marketing.

There are other tools which could be called a search simulator. What it basically does is create possible search scenarios, which then can be sent to another person. Then when they do a search, the key words they used can be viewed by you. This tool is useful for those who are involved in a niche business, where it can hard to find the right key word. There are more examples of tools that can help with proper key word usage. Choosing one wisely can help make life a lot easier when searching for that all elusive keyword or phrase.

Which brings us to the next topic, which would be, phrases. People are no longer just putting in a word for the search query. They are putting in entire questions, also known as long tailed key words. As you may have guessed, there are tools to help you with long tailed keywords.