These last few weeks, we moved to a new site build for an entity offering certification in the executive security protection field.
First things first –Determine the keywords that will serve as the foundational base to everything you’re going to build. Keywords are built into your company name, your domain name, your tag lines, your Unique Selling Proposition, your navigation buttons on your website and in every content page on your website.
Why are keywords so important? They act as your homing beacon.
- Keywords quickly come to the aid of your prospects trying to find you and other businesses like you.
- Keywords offer substantial help to the search engines in indexing you quickly and regularly (and respecting you in the process, which adds even more Brownie points from the engines.)
In your industry, you have words and catchphrases that define you. Don’t assume, however, that your audience out there is using the same combination of phrases to search for and find you on the Internet. This is where Keyword Research comes in, and it’s actually a fun exercise.
At Armitage, Inc., we use a number of tools to help us find the words and terms that your demographic is using to find entities like yours. This example spreadsheet here is just the first, basic piece we use with Google AdWords. We simply type in phrases we THINK should be used, and Google tells us if we’re right, and/or if we should be considering other recommendations it offers.
In this partial piece I’ve pulled from the spreadsheet, here’s a quick 4-part keyword activity you can easily do:
- Build a Spreadsheet of Options: We took Google’s advice, loading up our spreadsheet with a variety of options from their AdWords Keyword Search Tool, particularly as certain phrases had higher search numbers in the United States.
- Check for Domain Availability: After completing our Branding exercise with the client, we honed in on a few keywords (the red and blue text you see) to check on their availability as domains or portional domains. It’s ALWAYS great to work actual, high-search keywords into your domain names, if at all possible.
- Build Keywords into Your Site Taxonomy: In other words, as you build out your navigation buttons for your site, where can you use specific keywords to help your prospect hone in on the information he/she needs, while also helping the search engines rank your keyword usage?
- Content Pages Using Keywords: For each content page you’re writing, assign a keyword phrase and imbed that phrase a few times into the paragraphs. In the spreadsheet above, all of the lines highlighted in light green show you where we used specific keywords in separate content pages. Here’s an example of a page of content I wrote around the keyword “executive protection” – see how this works?
Nav Button #1 – Executive Protection
Key word: executive protection
<<Company name>> provides renowned Certification in Executive Protection & High Profile Protection Services.
Our online course curriculum is a combination of written material, case study videos, required submissions from our students and module testing. After the completion of our 11-module segments, our students participate in a short exam process to achieve their E.S.P.C. status.
Once this testing is completed, we fully certify high-level security protection agents for a variety of corporate, celebrity and private sector entities and individuals.
Subhead: The last thing you, as an organization, should be worrying about is the safety and quality of life of your own valued individuals.
These days, it is absolutely essential that executive protection provide stability and security to any number of individuals, government organizations and businesses committed to protecting their own. We deploy our Certified Executive Protection Agents anywhere in the business and high-profile world with absolute confidence that we have certified these agents to work in any environment against any agenda.
We provide high-profile (celebrity, dignitary) protection, too. See details
This is only the beginning to how we use keywords to continue to define your brand and set you apart from the crowd. As you create your website with keywords, and as you begin to work the same keywords into your Online and Offline Initiatives, you will quickly begin to see why this simple exercise in research and commitment to keyword strategy will significantly create your world of difference.
P.S. Can this work be done on a site that already exists?
Absolutely, and the sooner the better. The vast majority of websites out there are not “dialed in” in this sense and, therefore, not leveraged as you can be. Contact me directly – Diane@Armitageinc.com – for a quick review and estimate of getting this work done for you on your own site.