5 Tips for Choosing Keywords to Increase Your Website SEO

As a small business owner, you have a great website but are you getting found online? You need to optimize your website by including correct keywords to boost your search

engine optimization (SEO). How do you create a list of the keywords and terms you should use so your potential customers can find you? Here are six ways to research keywords to increase your website’s SEO.

Make a list of pertinent topics

Think about the topics applicable to your business. You can use these topics to help you come up with specific keywords.

If your business has a blog, you can use the topics you blog about often. Other ways to find relevant topics is to take note of topics that come up in your sales conversations.

Use your list of topics to pick your keywords

You now have a list of topics relevant to your business. Using those topics, you can identify keywords that are part of the topics. These are keywords and phrases you think your target customer will probably use when conducting a search for a business like yours.

Research related search terms

Fill out your topic keyword list with related search terms. An easy way to find related search terms is to go to Google.com and take a look at all the related search terms that appear when you type one of your keywords. After you type in your keyword or phrase, scroll to the bottom of Google's results and you will see a list of suggested searches related to your original input. Use these keywords to spark ideas for other keywords.

See how competitors are ranking for these keywords

It is always helpful to see what your competitors are doing. If your competitor ranks high for certain keywords that are on your list, it makes sense for you to use these works too. A great opportunity for you to own market share on important search terms is to use keyword and phrases that your competitor is not using.

Use Google AdWords Keyword Planner to narrow down your keyword list

Now that you've found a great list of keywords, you need to narrow down your list. Google AdWords Keyword Planner is a great tool to use. You can get search volume and traffic estimates for the keywords you are contemplating in Keyword Planner.

You now have a list of keywords and phrases that will help increase your website’s SEO.