What are Keywords and why are they important?

Remember when businesses or services were found by searching through the thin pages of a thick telephone book? Well, it is helpful to think about your online presence as being an advanced version of a directory listing. In the phone book, businesses needed to be listed in the right section e.g. ‘builders’ and the right location e.g. ‘Christchurch’ to enable potential customers to find them amongst the thousands of listings. Now you are listing your business on the internet and your customers need to find you amongst over 1 billion other sites - but there is good news...

Every word that you type has the potential to be the ‘keyword’ that your customers are searching for.

In this new online directory you can be listed under unlimited index points. So, ask yourself; what would your customers type into a Google search?

Case study #1:

A charity wants to support people experiencing miscarriage in New Zealand with an informative website.

What would the people that they are trying to support type into Google? 

'Am I having a miscarriage?', 'What is a miscarriage?', 'miscarriage support in nz', 'pregnancy loss information nz'.

All of these potential search terms are keywords for this charity.

→ For this charity to reach those that it is trying to help, the content on the website needs include as many of their keywords as possible (without sounding unnatural).

When writing the page names, section titles, content, and even the file names of images on your website, have the needs that you are fulfilling in mind and make sure that you are using the keywords that you have identified. 

Case study #2:

A small retail business in the Hurunui region wants to show up online when people search for things to do in Hurunui. 

What would a person that you are trying to reach type into a search engine? 

‘Things to do in Hurunui’, ‘Hurunui activities’, ‘shopping in Hurunui’, ‘Christchurch to Hanmer road trip’, ‘Stops to make between Christchurch and Hanmer’

→ This small retailer’s website is mainly products and product descriptions so it would be a little strange for them to add in all of the keywords, but they could slip ‘a great stop between Christchurch and Hanmer’ into their About page. 

Waterfall at Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools

One way to increase the number of keywords included in the content on your site is to write a blog post.

The retail business above could do a ‘Top Ten Stops on Your Way to Hanmer’ post and then quite naturally include ‘Things to do’, ‘shopping’ and ‘Hurunui’ in the text of their blog. The blog post is also an opportunity to collaborate with other businesses to increase their reach and search engine ranking (your site is more trusted by search algorithms if other sites link to you). For example, the local coffee shop that they include in their top 10 list may share a link to the blog post. 

→ Increasing traffic to your website and having visitors to your website stay for a longer duration also shows the search algorithms that your site is offering value to the people who visit it and this can also increase your search ranking. (Search ranking is how close to the top of the page your website appears when somebody searches your keywords). 

If your site doesn’t mention the keywords that somebody might use to find your business, this is a missed opportunity. 

The same principle applies to your social media accounts. If, for example, you offer counseling for post natal depression, ask yourself, “Do I ever mention those exact words?”

→ Location tagging

If you are a location based business (e.g. a counsellor offering in-person therapy, or a builder) then location is another of your keywords. This is where location tagging is great. Instead of having a list of all the possible place names for the areas you service, you can be strategic by tagging locations of photos of you on the job.

If, unlike a builder, you work from one location but want to reach people in wider areas, you could think about other ways to tag locations that you service. For example a therapist could share a post or reel about the benefits of nature for mental health, the post could include a photo or video of a nature walk that is in their wider area, and they could tag that location. Get creative to achieve your goals x

→ Hashtags - if you can’t work out how to naturally include keywords in your posts you can still include them as a hashtag #smallbusiness #marketing

As with all of your content and branding it is important that you take time to think about your business goals. You are a small business and you only have so much time - so concentrate on keywords that align with your current goals. Implement keywords on your website and use them strategically on other platforms.

Being mindful of keywords is one tool that you can use to achieve your business goals