Here in Cleveland there are plenty of small to medium sized businesses who like to try to save a bit of money here and there when you can. You may well use a local SEO company to help push your business online, but many companies will take on areas of online marketing which they feel like they can give positive input. It’s easy to spend a lot of money on Keyword research, but as a small company, you can do a lot of this research yourself. Even if you are just trying to help the SEO Company along with their search, it can be helpful. Here we outline a few ideas which you might not have thought of yourself in terms of finding the right keywords for your business.
Contact form submissions.
If you have an automated submission box, this will be a great source for keywords. Look out for what your actual customers are asking for. If they are all saying they would like to know more about your ‘cheap toolbox deals’, you can be sure that this is an important keyword for your website. If your client base is already associating your business with specific phrases which keep cropping up, it’s fair to say that it’s a keyword for your company.
Industry forums.
You can jump into the most popular forums for your industry, and find out what people are talking about. Look for the conversations that are generating the most discussion and page views. Within these, you will find great keyword ideas. If there’s a thread about where to find the best value toolboxes and it is generating a huge number of page views, there’s a good chance that ‘best value toolboxes’, could be a great keyword to target.
Industry listings on Ebay.
Ebay is such a good barometer for so many things, and Keywords is just such a thing! If you are a retailer of physical products, then this could really work for you. The best approach is to start to type in some fairly generic terms relative to your industry. While you are doing this, Ebay will start to self generate a list of possible queries which can probably drop straight into your keyword research box!
Best post lists.
On the other hand, you might run a tech website which has nothing to do with the physical sale of anything. If this is the case, mining your competitors ‘Best post’ lists at the end of the year can be fruitful in the extreme. You should be on the lookout for high quality blogs in your niche. At the end of the year they will likely offer a yearly round up of their most viewed posts of the last twelve months. Go through these posts with a fine toothed comb and the likelihood is that you will find some great keywords for your list.
Your secretary or receptionist.
Every day your receptionist is answering the phone, following up on email enquiries, and is the first point of contact for many of your potential purchasers. Don’t underestimate just how useful the information they hold could be! The first sentence most people utter to your first point of contact for your business is likely to be full of keywords. ‘Can you tell me more about your Toolbox prices?’ ‘I’d like to know more about what is included in your 45 bit screwdriver case.’ Both of these enquiries carry keywords, but you’ll never know that unless you speak to your receptionist to find out! Have them monitor their phone calls and emails for a few weeks to find out what your existing clients want, and what they subconsciously understand to be your keywords.
Of course these are just ideas. You may find that your SEO company already has your keyword research under control, but if you’ve left it to yourself, then you could do worse than to look into some of the above ideas to expand your existing keyword research.
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