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Small Business Tips: Why Keywords Are Critical For Your Website and Business

Written by: Ingrid Cliff

Article Overview: According to MYOB's recent survey of small businesses in Australia, only 41% of all small businesses have a website. The vast majority of the small businesses with a website wouldn't know whether or not they have any keywords, let alone what they were if they did have them. And yet keywords are the most important element of any website. So what exactly are keywords and why do you need them?

Small Business Tips: Why Keywords Are Critical For Your Website and Business

According to MYOB's recent survey of small businesses in Australia, only 41% of all small businesses have a website. The vast majority of the small businesses with a website wouldn't know whether or not they have any keywords, let alone what they were if they did have them. And yet keywords are the most important element of any website.

So what exactly are keywords and why do you need them?

When you are looking for something on the internet you go to your nearest friendly search engine such as Google and type in a few words to help you find what you are looking for. Congratulations! You have just typed in keywords.

Google looks at the words you have typed in and using amazingly complex algorithms brings back web pages that it thinks best matches the words you typed in.

To put it another way – keywords are the difference between being found in the search engines and remaining in the wilderness. They are the difference between making money and your website gathering electronic dust.

The number one spot on a page of results from Google gets approximately 40% of all people who look for that particular term clicking on it. Once you get below number one spot, the numbers drop off significantly. If you want more customers you need more people visiting your site. One way to do this is to appear higher in the search engine results.

If you are serious about your website as a business tool, you have to have and use the right keywords in the right way.

Let's start with where Google looks for keywords when it wants to find matches for a search term. Google first of all looks at the title of your website, then the title of your page, your keywords metatag (a line of code at the top of your web page where your keywords are listed out), your page description (another line of code which described the contents of your page), the words on your page and the alt tags for any of your pictures.

Put simply, the more places Google finds matches with the term it is looking for then the higher you will rank in the returned results. (There are a whole lot of other things it considers, but the focus of this article is only on the impact of keywords).

So for example, if a person typed in "pumpkin carving templates", Google will then go off and if it finds a website www.pumpkincarvingtemplates.com, with a page called pumpkin_carving_templates, with a description that says this page is all about where to buy and how to use pumpkin carving templates, with lots of great copy about pumpkin carving templates and pictures of pumpkin carving templates, then Google works out that this result is quite relevant to what is being looked for and returns it quite highly in the results.

So – before we go any further, a bit of detective work for you. Go to your business website in your browser. If you are using Explorer click on View at the top of your page, then click on "source". You will see all of the lines of code that go into your website. See if you can find your metatags for your keywords, title and description. Look down the code to see if you can see all of your copy.
Many businesses that do this are horrified to find they have nothing at all in the keywords line, a description that says "Joe Bloggs website", a page title that says "home" and all of their copy hidden in a flash file or Javascript file (which renders it invisible to search engines). And they wonder why search engines can't find them!

Now you know a little bit of what you are up against, how do you find the right keywords for your business?

The idea when selecting keywords is to find words or phrases that are directly relevant to your business, that don't have too many competing web pages in the world and those that are competing are not fully optimised for those words.

Keywords are like a homing beacon, from which people can find your business. If you use the wrong words your website is more like a pilot light rather than a beacon. Setting your keywords is both a science and an art and you generally need someone skilled to help you choose the right ones for your business.

Many people first turn to their web designers to help, but not all web designers know about the importance of keywords. Many designers are graphic artists who enjoy using the electronic media for their art. The problem is they are focussed on the beauty side of the equation rather than the hard edge side of websites – the keywords and correct site navigation. There is nothing wrong with that as a specialisation, it just means you need to find someone who can help you with the SEO (search engine optimisation) of your website.

If your web designer is happy to help you with keywords or if you find an SEO expert, you need to do some more digging to see how much they really know.

Some people dabble in keywords, but they don't have the tools or the experience to choose the right ones. They don't understand the difference a single letter can make to search engine returns – for example which website would you prefer to own number one spot on Google for: "write business letter" with 249 hits per day or "write business letters" with 22 hits per day?

Some will set you keywords that are so highly competitive that you have no snowball's chance in hell of hitting the top of Google for, such as internet marketing or weight loss. Some will not understand your industry and will miss refining the search by location – for example many coaching clients look for someone local rather than international, so will look for "Brisbane business coaches" rather than "business coaches".

Ask questions about how they find out what words are the most useful for your business, see if you can get some examples of their reports or ask if they can give you examples of where they have made a difference to website rankings through their work.

After you have chosen the person to help you with your keywords, you will end up with a list of words – your number one keyword word or phrase you are targeting as well as secondary words.
These words need to be used throughout your website in the correct code places as well as in your copy. From a copywriting perspective, you need to have your keywords placed in the correct places in your copy on your web page.

Too many uses of keywords can get you banned from Google (the dreaded Google slap), not enough and you disappear. You need to work with an SEO copywriter who understands the importance of keywords and can work with you to maximise the potential of your website.
Your SEO copywriter can also help you with keyword rich articles that can drive traffic back to your website, as well as a number of other web strategies using keywords to build your credibility and boost customer numbers.

Keywords should be the foundation upon which all your other web strategies are based. Get them right and your website (and your business) will grow.

Related Articles
  What Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The Basics
  Get Your Keyword Research Right
  ••••••> Free SEO Tip of the Day: Keyword Research Guide
  Business Opportunity - 10 Tips When Choosing Your Keywords
  Keyword Selection For Search Engine Optimization SEO

Article Tags: algorithms, australia, business tool, electronic dust, element, few words, google, making money, myob, page description, search engine results, search engines, search term, small businesses, web page, web pages, wilderness



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