Even for small local brands, keyword analysis and content marketing both present opportunities for substantial and sustained growth when done correctly. The trick is identifying a relevant keyword that hits a current trend and that speaks to a specific problem your ideal customer avatar is facing.
The benefits of keyword research are numerous and far-reaching – and you can’t afford to ignore them if you want to drive sales for your local business. Last week, we covered why keyword research is important but this week is about the perks for local brands.
If you have been wondering why SEO keyword research matters and why you should be using a specific keyword in your content, these five benefits will send you straight to Google for more work on your search engine optimization.
1. Start to Tailor Content Marketing to Search Intent
One of the first benefits of keyword research is simply that you have a great understanding of what your audience is looking for when it comes to products or services like yours. A keyword research tool can tell you what people really want to know when searching for a target keyword.
Are they looking for information or are they looking to buy right now?
SEO keyword research clues you into what they want which allows you the unique advantage of being able to tailor your content marketing to align with that desire.
This means that you won’t just be throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping that some part of your search engine optimization is going to stick. When you know what your customers want and how to give it to them, your content marketing becomes a robust marketing tool. You answer their questions, give them solid reasons why they should solve their problem with your product or service, and lead them to the next step in your sales funnel.
Keep in mind that you may need content that covers several different pain points. Some people need help right away but don’t have the budget or inclination to become paying customers. Providing them with free information that has a substantial impact on their pain point allows them to remember who you are and what you offer them. When they are finally ready to buy, your business will be top of mind.
The goal should be to nurture people all the way from cold leads through to becoming paying customers.
2. Be Clear on Your Content and Keyword Strategy
Once you have a list of potential keywords that you want to start using in upcoming content, you get the freedom to have control over some of the more time-consuming parts of your position. Instead of throwing everything you have at the content machine, you can start with the most popular keyword or the one that has the best chance of making an impact.
Most business owners don’t have unlimited time to spend analyzing keywords. If you can stop chasing a short tail keyword and instead focus on low-competition long-tail phrases with high search volume, you will know where your time is best spent.
Stop trying to write ten pieces of content every week and instead focus on keyword optimization with minimal work on your part. This is a valuable insight that allows you to leverage your most valuable resource: your time.
There is no easy cookie-cutter SEO guide you can follow that will tell you what’s right for your brand. If you have a keyword strategy in place, you can prioritize which blogs, articles, or newsletters are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck.
Combine that with leveraging content creation services in your industry (like those offered by Creative Collective) and you’ll have a whole new lease on life.
3. Expand to New Clientele with Greater Awareness
Think about it right now: You probably already know which search term or terms net you the largest influx of clients. Chances are that it isn’t the result of short tail keywords (those with just two to three words in them). The keyword difficulty for these phrases is simply too high and you’ll rarely win out against the giants of industry that have been around longer and have more content.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t rank for related keywords.
Instead of trying to hack Google Analytics and muscle your way to the top of the search engine results pages, you can start to focus your attention on a niche market that has more customers and less competition. This tactic is very similar to the one we’ll get to next, but it deserves its own section.
Tweaking your product offering even just slightly means that you can reach an entirely new base of customers. A good keyword tool will show you things that are tangentially related to your industry and existing keywords, including those that are too competitive for you to rank. You’ll get more leads without having to change strategies too much.
A research tool like Keysearch (my personal favorite) will show you keyword variations that have lower competition and can help you decide on a new targeted keyword, product offering, or service that you have been missing.
4. Spot Trends in Your Industry Before Your Competitors
If you have your finger on the pulse of your keyword research tools, then you are going to be one step ahead of the other businesses in your industry. Effective keyword research shows you what people are looking for in real time – and you don’t necessarily have to pay for a premium tool to harness this data. A quick look for a relevant Google trend can do just fine.
Why is this aspect of keyword research important?
First and foremost, it can help you to identify a product or service that you may choose to offer in the future. It could be closely related to your current offering but that your competitors are also lacking. If you can be the first to offer a solution to a pain point, you can have the corner market on a profitable (and less competitive) service that benefits clients in a new way.
SEO tools like Answer the Public and Answer Socrates can be great ways to get in on new trends and see questions that people are asking. Google Trends is another free tool you can use that’s just as simple as a regular Google search. From here, you can take those trends and find relevant SEO keywords that will bolster your strategy and help you tailor content to this new offering.
5. Make More Sales with Thorough Keyword Research
With a comprehensive SEO strategy in place, you can start to reap the benefits of being the first (and maybe the only) local business to guide customers through your sales funnel. If you can meet them where they are, hit their paint points with your content strategy, and match their keyword intent, then you will likely start to see an increase in your search engine ranking.
And that can come with substantial traffic gains – and more sales.
People pay attention to the search engine results that provide them with the help they need to move from where they are now to where they want to be in the future. The first ranking on Google gets at least 30 percent of the clicks. Even if you move to the second and third position, this trifecta often scores about 60 percent of the clicks.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if your audience is discovering you on Google through the search result pages AND you can meet their need, your business will see a boost to your bottom line. Of course, you also have to ensure that more than just your content management is pristine. You also need to think about technical SEO factors like page speed and mobile optimization.
If you can give people a world-class experience on your website and solve their problems, you’ll see more sales. And what business couldn’t use more sales, just as the result of using the right keyword at the right time?
Ready to Tap into the Benefits of Keyword Research?
You can invest all of the time and money you have in your bank account into world-class research tools and still not walk away with a targeted keyword that will boost business. But if you can focus on leveraging the tools that are free or low-cost at your disposal (like Google Keyword Planner) and start to get creative in tweaking a keyword strategy, you are likely to see a more engaged audience.
They want the kind of content that you are putting out and are hungry for the solutions you’re going to provide them with. Even if they don’t make a purchase or a commitment to you today, they will remember your brand well into the future because you provided them with a solid value.
This is the true benefit of keyword research.
Search engine optimization techniques say that you need to narrow down to a target keyword and center all content around that idea. Instead, you might start to think about it as solving a problem for your customer. What do they need that only you can deliver? Let your content reflect the search intent, capitalize on new trends, and reach new people so that you can close more sales and boost your ROI.
Not sure how to do your own keyword analysis?
Creative Collective has the services you need to take advantage of the benefits of keyword research. We start your brand off with a strategy session and planning meeting, after which we create a detailed content calendar that shows you what will help people better connect with your brand.
We create the content, send it to you for approval, and post it.
Our services offer a local, boutique approach to help you get strategic with your content and stick with it, no matter how busy you get. Reach out to us today to learn more about whether we’re the right fit for your content marketing.