Yesterday one of my clients called me about Wordtracker. She was using Wordtracker to try and find keywords she could use in one of her web sites. However, she was having difficulty in finding any words that had reasonable numbers of searches or little competition. Discussing things with her I soon realised she was looking for words that she used to describe her business. I suspected these were not the words her clients used. When we started to think about the words her clients used, she became much more successful in finding the right keywords.

What this tells me is that when using Wordtracker or other keyword tools, you need to use the words and phrases that your customers and potential customers use, rather than the ones you would like them to use. For example, you may be selling “prestige cars”, but your clients may be searching for “posh cars”.

A good way to find out what your customers use is to look through past correspondence and emails. Also talk to a few of them and ask them how they describe your work or your business. The more you see things from your customers’ perspective the easier it will be to find the right keywords for your web site. And if you get the right keywords, you’ll get more hits and will be more likely to attract sales.