Choosing Keywords - Consumers at a Loss for Words

June 25, 2007

          

Companies that optimize their content invest a lot of resources into choosing the right keywords. They brainstorm lists and consult tools like WordTracker and Keyword Discovery to find out what terms people are actually searching on.

Remember that your consumers are also trying to figure out what keywords to search on, too.

A client was talking to me about his own search experience online, as a consumer. He told me how he tries to "guess" the words that will bring up what he wants.

That's so true, isn't it? Everyone has experienced the frustration of not being able to find the information you're searching for online. Even someone who optimizes sites for a living! You know it's out there somewhere...but you can't seem to find the right words to bring that content to you.

I have this closet door on my pantry that falls out of the track every time I open or close it. I spent about a half an hour one evening trying to find out how fix that. Of course, not being a tradesman, I had no idea what type of door it is called. I had to "learn" as I searched. First I tried phrases around "closet doors", the closest type seemed to be "accordian door". More searching and finally found a site with pictures - nope, it's not an accordian door. What about "folding"? Anyway, I'll spare you the details, but I could not for the life of me find any resource that would help me fix the door on my pantry...

Like me, consumers will search on phrase after phrase, scanning the first 2 pages of search results, until they find the results they are looking for. Or give up, like I did.

You can see here the disparity between organizations and their audiences. If you're optimizing your content, you should be easily found for the terms that your audiences are searching on, but if you're not giving a thought to targeting keywords for all your content, you're widening that gap between you and your customer. If I had found a good instructional site, I would have bookmarked it and returned again and again for other household problems - possibly buying from advertisers on that site, too.

When you don't target your content for your user's needs, the end, you both lose!


This post was posted on June 25, 2007 in the following sections: . There are currently 197 comments.

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  1. Katie Cummings says:
    June 26, 2007 @ 18:08 — Reply

    Similar to this is searching on flickr. You have to enter somewhat random and artsy type search phrases and half the time you don't get what you want. If you enter specific phrases, you don't get results. Thanks for the insight, Katie

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