People from all over the planet are going online in searches, endless kinds of searches. They type in their questions, or ‘keywords’ to find answers, information to find answers, or products. These queries are entered into a search engine, and yup, it does just that.
It searches. It goes off on a search to deliver all the answers that include the ‘keywords’. The term keyword refers to any query of any length. for example, "apple", "make an apple pie", and "reserve a room in Apple Valley" are ALL considered keywords, they all have the word apple, and yet they would be the results of very different searches, wouldn’t they?
That seems simple enough. The concept so far is easy to grasp. The real fun begins when you realize your brain cannot possibly think like billions of other human beings. Joe Blow from Idaho didn’t grow up the same way as Jane Doe in London, and Fran In Cape Town is dyslexic. So when you are convinced that a lot of people would be searching for ‘affordable shoes’, and find they mostly want ‘flat shoes’, or ‘leather shoes’,…it is simple, but not easy.
This is why most people in business for themselves do not often have the time for the hours and hours needed every month to set up a campaign, and then manage it constantly. The internet is like a living entity, because it is being driven by all of us. And it changes constantly.
OK, now on to the next topic. You now know what a keyword is; how many do you want to use, and how often do you want them used? Here’s one theory: the more keywords means more clicks, so you use a lot of keywords to get more traffic, more orders, and more money.
Sounds good; but remember those apples? If you draw people in with apple pie, and they wanted Apple Valley, the visitor is not happy, and you just lost money you didn’t need to lose, … and you don’t even have a customer!
Google has enlightened us about relevance, and it is one the best things ever to happen to online marketing. When Joe Blow goes on Google and types in John Deere Hat, and BAM! there is his list of John Deere hats,and not deer, not johnny jump-ups, not tractors.
Kinda makes you proud. The internet’s not that perfect, but so far ahead of even a short time ago. In the big picture, the number of keywords in a campaign doesn’t improve relevance. You really want a good keyword that gets several clicks a day making a sale half the time , even if it’s only ten clicks, opposed to a keyword that screams through 10,000 clicks, but no sales. Ouch.
Thanks for your time. This is a simplified explanation of keywords, to be sure. But it does give an idea of the importance of using relevant keywords, both in the value to your visitors, the protection of your bottom line, and all the advantages to your profits.
