Choosing your keywords is an important factor in optimizing your search engines. You are going to want to begin with a relevant keyword that will gain you lots of traffic, but at the same time, you want that traffic to convert. There is really no point in ranking for a keyword that gets you 1k+ hits a month if it’s not a converting keyword is there?
I get so many clients who want to rank for the broadest terms possible. I don’t blame them for not understanding Chicago search engine optimization, as I would hope they wouldn’t blame me for not knowing how their widgets work.
Client’s must understand that sometimes, the broad keywords that may get a lot of traffic aren’t always the best keywords to be targeting their seo campaign for. For example, say a brokerage firm wants to increase the leads they get from the internet. They may think that the main term they want to target is "Stock Brokers". Well, that’s wonderful; Google’s keyword tool shows that approximately 90,500 searches for this keyword take place each month! But, how many of those are going to result in conversions? They are not targeting their niche. They are spreading themselves too thin by going after a word that countless finance majors and journalists are searching for every day for resources…not brokerage firms.
How can I know what keywords convert?
This is so simple it’s not even funny. If you want to know what keywords are converting for you, run a pay per click campaign. Running a PPC campaign with a specific ad for specific keywords can show you exactly what your highest converting keywords are. (Tip: Using an offer on the landing page enticing people to mention your online ad for a deal can help track your CTR because many people don’t fill out the form, but call. But it doesn’t necessarily track your conversions…unless you want to get ridiculous and say mention your keyword)
After you have run your PPC campaign for a little while you will see which keywords people are typing in that lead to the most conversions, and you can target for exactly those kinds of people. And THAT is how you get keywords that convert!
