Before you start making radical changes on your website, in an effort to rank higher in the search engines, you first need to decide what keywords you’re going to rank for.
There are two types of keywords. Short-tail and long-tail keywords.
Short-tail keywords are the most popular, most searched, and therefore most competitive. These are short one or two keywords that define an industry or product. If your company sells shoes, the single most popular short-tail keyword is “shoes”. This keyword would be very difficult to rank your website to the number one position.
Long-tail keywords are more specific versions of the short-tail keywords. These are less popular because they are more niche. If you sell shoes, but specifically athletic shoes, you could aim to rank your website for the keyword “blue athletic shoes”. Develop a strategy to rank for many long-tail keywords over going for the more difficult (sometimes impossible) short-tail keywords.
Although this image above is a few years old, it still holds true. It also doesn’t only relate to B2B. It works just as well for B2C.
The point is to focus on the most descriptive phrases that have lower search frequency. They have low competition and are easy to rank for. If you develop a large number of long-tail keywords, you’ll be able to start driving traffic to your website quickly.
Next steps:
- Make a list of your ideal short-tail keywords that describe your website and brand.
- Add to that list be expanding each short-tail keyword to get more specific.
- Prioritize the keywords and order them for what keywords will drive the most business.
- Assign each of the specific keywords (1 or 2) to a single page of your website. If you don’t have a page that describes that keyword, plan to create one.
- Search each long-tail keyword phrase, observe the competition, and continually check to see if you’re content is showing up.