If you want the people you’d like to do business with to find you online, you need to use the right words in the content and copy on your website. These are the ones your ideal customer types in search engines when they have a problem you can solve.

If you don’t use the right words, it won’t matter how brilliant your goods and services are because no one will know you’re there.

Your website is the shopfront of your business. If you think about a brick-and-mortar shop, you’d walk straight past if there were no lights on and no signs outside to tell you what the shop is called and what it sells. It’s the same with your website. Your keywords are what attract the attention of search engines and get them to show your website to the people you want to do business with.

So, getting them right is vital if you want your website to work hard for your business.

How to find the right keywords

To make sure the words you’re using on your website are the right ones, start by making a list of all of the topics you’d like to be seen as an authority for in your industry. These are your content pillars and are the key things you should be writing about in your content and copy.

Next, write a list of words that come to mind when you think about each of these topics and add them to the relevant content pillar. Then start typing those words into a search engine. Have a look at the websites that come up in the first five or six search results. Are they the same type of business as yours? If they are, have a look around their website. What words do they use in their headings and page titles?

Do they have a blog section? If they do, what topics do they write about and which words are in the headlines and headings? Add all of these words to your list if they aren’t on it already. If the website is showing up in the top few places in your search results, they’re using the right keywords so you need to make sure you’re using them too.

If your search results are showing websites in a different industry to yours, then your keywords aren’t relevant enough to your audience and have more than one meaning. Make sure you refine them so you aren’t attracting the wrong audience.

Ask your audience

Another effective way of doing keyword research is to ask your audience. They’re the people who follow you on social media and are on your email list. A lot of them will have found you through typing a problem they have into a search engine to find someone to solve it for them.

Even if those people can’t remember exactly what they typed, they’ll be able to give you a good idea of the words they used or would use if they were looking for you now. Do a question box on your social media stories and ask your audience which words they’d use. And also send a quick email to your list asking them the same thing.

Make sure you check all of the replies and add any words to your list that aren’t there already. Hopefully, most of the words are there already. But if they’re not, you need to make sure you add those to your website.

Keyword research tools

There are lots of plugins and tools you can use, some for free, others you have to pay for, that will help you find the right words and use them appropriately. If your website is WordPress, there are plugins such as Yoast that make sure you’re using the right number of keywords in your blog posts. It uses a traffic light system to tell you how optimised your post is, with tips about improving it.

If you are happy to pay for tools, there is a range available such as Keysearch or Semrush. I use Keysearch as I find it easy to use and doesn’t cost much. I mainly use it to find headlines that are easier to rank for using my specified keywords. There are lots of others available so do some research and see which ones let you try before you buy as that’s the best way of finding one that suits you best.

Do you need some help with keyword research?

Keyword research doesn’t float everyone’s boat. If that’s you or you just don’t have the time, I can help. I have a range of one-off services to help you make sure you’re using the right words.

My keyword research packages do the work for you. I’ll find five or 10 keywords for you and will show you where they need to go. They start at £75 for five words. I’ve also got a mini-SEO audit. I’ll check you’re using the right words and if not, find them for you. You’ll get an easy-to-follow action plan with simple things you can do to get your website seen by more of the people you want to do business with. The audit is £149 which includes a copy of my SEO workbook to help you keep on track.

If you’d like to book either of these packages, get in touch today as the prices are going up in January.

If you’re looking to learn how to do keyword research yourself, have a look at my first in a series of six Simple SEO masterclasses which shows you how to find the right words. It’s £20 and is available until the 11th December.

Why not join Simple SEO? You’ll get simple weekly tips to help you get your website seen by the right people. As a thank you for signing up, you’ll get my free download with three things you can do today to make your website visible.