Finding the Best Keywords for Your Brand

Keyword research is a key part of any online reputation management strategy.

Maintaining your online reputation is a multi-faceted beast, and a major part of any successful online reputation management strategy involves being in control of what people see when they search for your business online. This is accomplished through search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is all about managing both the quality and the quantity of the traffic your website gets through organic search results, and it all starts with keyword research.

While often overlooked as just a small aspect of SEO, keyword research is actually the single most important aspect of any digital marketing strategy, as well as any online reputation management strategy. If you don’t know which keywords will lead to your website — and which keywords to optimize your website for — you won’t find success in driving traffic to your website. Furthermore, when you optimize your website for certain keywords, you’re telling search engines what your website is all about.

Understanding the importance of keyword research is one thing, but actually doing it effectively is a whole other ballgame.

How to Find the Right Keyword for Your Website

Use your intuition.

As a business owner, you understand what your business is all about and what you have to offer better than anyone else. You also probably have a pretty good idea of what kinds of keywords people may search that are relevant to your business.

Put together a list of possible keywords that you think people may enter when looking for businesses like yours. Add any keywords that are relevant to the services and products you offer as well. It also doesn’t hurt to ask for ideas from friends, family, or even your team.

When brainstorming keywords, put yourself in a consumer’s shoes when they might need your services. For instance, if you were a homeowner with a frozen pipe that burst, you might use keywords like, “emergency plumber near me,” “local plumber,” or “emergency plumbing services.”

Use the Google Keyword Planner tool.

Google offers a free keyword planning tool that business owners can use to find relevant keywords for their website. With the Google Keyword Planner tool, the keywords you’ve come up with when brainstorming can be used to find thousands of related keywords.

People search in all kinds of ways, and the Google Keyword Planner tool can help you pinpoint the most common ones. The great thing about the tool is that it shows you search volumes for each term, helping you avoid optimizing your website for a search term that only a few people are using, or a search term that is far too competitive. Google’s keyword research tool also allows you to search by location, helping you to find the keywords people in your area are using.

Tips for Finding the Right Keywords

You’ll find that keyword research tools generate thousands upon thousands of results, and not all of them will be relevant to your website. Besides, it’s not going to be possible to optimize your website for all of those keywords, and you’re going to want to choose a few top options to focus on primarily. Here are a few tips for finding the best keywords to focus on:

#1. Make sure that keywords are relevant.

No matter how much search volume a keyword gets, it won’t pay off to optimize your website for it unless it’s relevant to your website. The biggest benefit of SEO is that it drives better, more relevant traffic to your website, and it does so without the need to pay for ads.

Relevancy is probably the most important aspect of keyword research, and in addition to driving the right kind of traffic to your website, choosing to optimize your website with relevant keywords will also help to establish trust in your brand.

Think about it. If you optimize your website for “emergency plumber near me,” but you’re only available Monday through Friday 9 – 5, it’s not going to create a good impression of your business if someone who really needs emergency plumbing services during after-hours can’t get ahold of you.

#2. Get the best results with long-tail keywords.

The more search results a keyword has, in general, the more competition you’ll have in trying to rank for it. Small to medium-sized businesses often don’t have the resources of large corporations, which means trying to compete with them on Google can be a real challenge. But when you target long-tail keywords, you’ll have less competition and a higher chance of success.

Let’s say that you own a men’s shoe company. You’ll never compete with an overly basic keyword, like “shoes” or even “men’s shoes,” but you’ll have a lot more luck when you target relevant, long-tail keywords, like “brown leather oxford shoes for men.”

Not only does targeting long-tail keywords make it possible for small businesses to be competitive players online, but they also lead to increased conversions. People who use more specific keywords are more likely to be ready to buy; whereas, people using more general search terms are more likely to still be in the research phase.

#3. Look at what keywords your competition is using.

When you need a few more ideas for keywords to target, looking at what your competition is doing is a great place to start. Knowing which keywords your competitors are going after can help you determine which keywords you might be forgetting. It will also help you expand your ideas,

Start by making a list of your competitors, and then find their websites online. From there, you can look at the metadata and read their content to figure out which keywords they are targeting. There are also tools out there that can help you figure out what keywords your competitors are actually ranking for.


Keyword research and SEO are just one aspect of online reputation management. With Top Rated Local, you’ll gain an understanding of your online reputation overall. Claim your Top Rated Local listing today to start managing your business’ online reputation like a pro.

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