I read recently on SEO Chat the importance of choosing the correct keywords and the keywords that will convert. Nothing could be truer. Working in SEO time and time again I hear from people that they want to appear top in Google for phrases that ultimately will not generate them the conversions that they so desperately seek. SEO Chat notes that one word keywords are pretty pointless and costly. Even if you do get to first place in Google it does not necessarily get you the conversions.

If your site is selling golf equipment it is pointless in optimising for the keyword ‘golf’. Although your site can generate a lot of visitors as this term is highly searched people who search this could be looking for anything to do with golf (golf news, golf courses, golf holidays, golf games etc.) and so your site will more than one occasion will prove to be irrelevant to them. Due to this your sites conversion rate for this particular keyword will be relatively low. By having a keyword like ‘golf equipment’ although the term is perhaps searched less it is a lot more relevant for what a user is searching for and hence should see that you get more conversions. You can go deeper than this and have ‘golf clubs’ which again is a lot more relevant for what the user wants and so can generate you even more conversions. If you wish you can keep narrowing it down further and further for example having ‘men’s golf clubs’ and then ‘men’s Callaway golf clubs’ which will generate fewer and fewer searches but in turn increases the relevancy of your site when someone searches the term and will naturally lead to higher conversion rates.

It does not stop here however. If you are going to optimise for a particular keyword such as men’s golf clubs’ it is important that the page that the user clicks on is relevant and displays men’s golf clubs if you are to generate sales. Of course this again applies to ‘men’s Callaway golf clubs’ which should send the user to a page displaying a range of ‘men’s Callaway golf clubs’.

This may seem really obvious to you and that because it really is. Taking a step back for a moment and really putting in some thought about what the user wants can make for a much more effective campaign from the get go.

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Search Engine Optimisation