One of the critical components of inbound marketing is the identification and use of keywords that are prominent in your business’ field/market. Because inbound marketing is all about attracting the customer to your website, you need to use keywords that are likely to be included in Google searches related to your field – this is what helps the potential customer find you.
If you find that your keywords aren’t ranking highly on Google, there are multiple possible reasons why. Here are four of the most likely:
You’ve chosen the wrong keywords
Some keywords are obvious: if you run a dog grooming business, “dog grooming” is certainly going to be a keyword you want to focus on. However, you need to do enough research to discover all of the best keywords for your business, because they won’t all be that obvious. Do some searching for businesses like yours and see what the top results have in common: what words and topics do they feature prominently?
Another good tip: put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What would you search for if you wanted to find your business? What problems does your business solve? Within those problems, you’ll find good keywords.
You’re not featuring the keywords
Your keywords need to be the linchpin of your content. Not only should they be featured throughout your blogs and content offers, you should even make them the central topic of content and include them in headlines and titles.
However, make sure your keyword usage makes sense. If you try to game the system by simply writing the same keywords over and over again, Google’s algorithms will identify your site as spam.
You’re not including enough links
Links are another important part of the Google ranking formula. Google indexes the entire internet with a web crawler, which travels from site to site through links. Therefore, the more links to recent blog posts or site pages you include in your content, the more times the web crawler will pass through your site. More links also increases the size of your online footprint, which boosts your relevance with Google. And the more relevant Google thinks your site is, the higher you’ll appear in search results.
You’re not cross-promoting
Even if you do everything discussed above, there’s still no guarantee your website is going to rank highly on Google by itself. One way to help ensure success is with cross-promotion. If you’re serious about inbound marketing, then you have various social media account for your business: use them! Anytime you write a new blog, post links on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Also, if you see something on social media that’s relevant to your business or your content, seize the opportunity and post a link. Social media is all about interactivity and collaboration, so be active with your accounts. Since Google incorporates social media content within its search results, all that activity will lead to a bigger online footprint for your site and a higher Google ranking.
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