Keyword marketing - get into the mind of your customers

  You are in a hotel, in the college town of Whats-A-Matta-U which counts Bullwinkle the Moose among it's most famous alumni, when suddenly your stomach starts to growl. Room service is closed. It's time to order some food. Besides being something you eat, food is a keyword that comes to mind when you are hungry. Are you going to open the local guide and look for "food" listings, maybe, but probably not. Perhaps you've got a more specific type of food in mind, say: pizza, Chinese, wings, or maybe fast, as in fast food, if you are willing to hop in the car and venture out in to unfamiliar territory to a drive through. In your quest to quiet that growling stomach of yours, you've just generated more keywords, more specific keywords. At this point, you've decided that a calzone would really hit the spot, and pizza places often sell calzones in addition to pizza. You pick up the local yellow pages, or the hotel directory listing local business establishments, and look for a food and beverage establishment that is listed in the pizza category, that carries calzones, and is close enough to deliver to your hotel room in a reasonable amount of time at a price you are willing to pay.

In the above example, a need developed that had to be satisfied. In response, you identified the need, and the action steps necessary to satisfy it. You identified the general category of products (food) and services (delivery) in to which a solution to your problem would fall. Food was narrowed down to the pizza category, under which you determined that a calzone would really hit the spot. A nearby pizza place was found that delivered calzones with half an hour with a minimal strain on your wallet. The merchant gained a customer and your needs were satisfied.

Along the way, many keywords popped in to your head, general keywords (categories) at first, then more specific as you narrowly defined what it was you were looking for. The establishment you chose to do business with was probably listed in the Whats-A-Matta-U food and beverage section of the directory you used, under pizza parlors, and in the ad calzones and 30 minute guaranteed delivery were highlighted

When people have needs to satisfy, they associate words with those needs which in the context of web marketing, we identify as keywords, and key phrases. When using a search service on the web (YAHOO!, Lycos, etc.) people will think of your small company not in terms of the name of the company, (because chances are they have never heard of it) but in terms of the products, services, or solutions they are looking for.

  There is nothing high tech about this, it is simply a matter of putting aside your mental model of your company and your web site, and thinking about it from the point of view of the consumer. If you've ever listed a business in the yellow pages, or even used the yellow pegs, you've used keywords to place your listing or to find information. Determining keywords and key phrases to target in your web marketing campaign is that simple.

• Figure that people may enter plural versions of the terms, say pizzas as well as pizza, so include both.
• Realize that people make spelling mistakes, especially those getting their edumacation at Whats-A-Matta-U, so you might even put some common misspellings on your list.
• Include specific and general keywords in your list. If you choose food as your keyword, chances are many people will look, but not many will buy because they are looking for a specific type of food.
• Your customers are probably like you, they will search the web in the same manner you do, so think of your site from the perspective of the consumer.
• Common sense is generally not common practice, so apply some common sense and you will be way ahead of the game.

Think you understand keyword marketing? Lets go create some web page titles!