There’s been a push-back against keywords and keyword usage over the past couple of years. That’s understandable, given the practice of keyword stuffing is now poison to a website. As such, plenty of marketers are hesitant to use keywords in their content too frequently –– or even at all. However, keywords still play an essential role in creating an effective search engine marketing strategy. And here are three reasons why:
Keywords Get your Blogs Noticed
Writing blogs to increase your website’s domain authority is a solid marketing practice in its own right. But you should want more from your blogs. Rather than treating stellar content like glorified placeholders on your site, insert keywords in certain vital areas (like headlines, meta descriptions, etc.) to increase the post’s visibility. It only makes sense to do everything in your power to boost your blog’s reach. After all, you spend hours creating, editing, and soliciting guest blog posts –– you might as well take the extra time to make sure people will actually read it. Keywords can help with that.
Keywords Drive Ad Campaigns
Keywords are essential to crafting an ad strategy that works for your business. Not only do “regular” keywords help you draw in interested customers, but also negative keywords can help eliminate unqualified leads landing on your page (and costing you money). For instance: if you’re looking to create an ad campaign specifically around “doctor loans,” you can select negative keywords like “medical students” or “bad credit,” to weed out searchers looking for something that you don’t offer. If you’re not paying attention to negative keywords in your current PPC strategy, then you’re practically throwing money down the drain.
Keywords Level the Playing Field
In the marketing world, small businesses are always at a disadvantage. They can’t create as much content as bigger companies; nor do they possess the budget, or the resources that major corporations have at their disposal. So how are small businesses supposed to get an edge over competitors with greater marketing power? The solution isn’t trying to outmuscle the big boys in your industry, but rather, to outmaneuver them. Adopting a long-tail keyword strategy, in which you pursue more specific queries that bigger companies ignore, can help you establish a foothold in a market you otherwise wouldn’t stand a chance in. In brief, no matter how you decide to market yourself responsibly using keywords will enable your business to reach new levels of productivity. Don’t be gun-shy; instead, start sprinkling keywords in your content wisely. You’ll be amazed at the results.
