Keeping up with your keywords
It is certainly no secret that internet search engines are driven by keywords. Organizations spend thousands of dollars each year on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies, seeking to enhance their ranking on popular search engine sites such as Google or Yahoo.
Much of the focus of SEO strategies lies in identifying and tagging webpages with specific ‘keywords’ or phrases that are descriptive of its content. Many professional communicators also recognize that they can dramatically increase their rankings by using those same keywords within the content of the webpage itself. More often than not, SEO strategies result in wide-spread website rewrites with the intention of sprinkling keywords throughout.
However, once the initial SEO process is completed, it is easy to fall back into old habits and forget to adhere to your keyword strategy. This week, we offer a few suggestions for keeping your keywords and phrases relevant, active and effective.
Frame your list: While this sounds rudimentary, try keeping a hard copy list of your organization’s keywords on your desk or pinned to a wall. If you are like me, you’ll find yourself scanning the list every now and then, thereby reinforcing the keywords in your mind.
Create an Anti-Thesaurus: Try compiling a list of frequently used terms that could easily be substituted for your keywords. Before you post new content to your site, look for these terms and see if they can be replaced by your preferred keyword.
Let the content creators own the keywords: In many organizations, webpage keywords are left to the webmaster to create, invariably after the content has already been generated. In reality, the choice of keywords should be the dominion of the content creators, who can appropriately weave them into their material from the start.
Conduct annual reviews: Just as much as it is good practice to review your website content annually for relevance and functionality, it is important to look at your keywords on a regular basis. Industry terms and trends can change overnight and retired keywords can not only date a site’s content, but could also be a potential liability in the future.
Above all, resist the temptation to over use your keywords. Be strategic about employing them, making sure to not sacrifice good content for quick hits.
Need help developing your website content? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.
