Christmas wouldn’t be complete without a classic Christmas cake, and, with home baking “cool” again thanks to TV shows like The Great British Bake Off, people are more likely to be making their own Christmas cake this year than ever before.
I thought I’d follow the trend and show you how to whip up a delightfully festive social media cake. Over the next few weeks I will take you through the process step-by-step, from gathering your essential ingredients (keywords), to mixing and “feeding” your content (alas no brandy involved!), decorating for maximum impact (adding tasty links, images etc), through to sharing your delicious efforts out to be enjoyed by all.
Part 1: It’s all about ingredients
In the first of these 4 blog posts, we are going to look at what constitutes the right ingredients for your social media cake, and the first essential is keywords.
A keywords is a word or phrase that people use to search for your business on search engines. You need to make sure that you pick the right key phrases so that your customers can actually find you. Proper identification of keywords could hugely boost your business, whilst starting with the wrong keyword phrases could either conceal your business from the eyes of prospective customers or send the wrong traffic to you. If you don’t want your cake to turn out as flat as a pancake, here’s what to do:
Analyse and Ask
Do a thorough analysis of your business to identify the keywords; write down all the words that you think people are searching for on the internet when they want to find your business. Focus on identifying the common terminologies used in your business and ask family and friends, existing customers and even clients, what words they think people are searching for.
Look at your competitors: spend some time researching what words your competitors are using on their websites to drive traffic to them.
Don’t forget the longtail
‘Long tail’ search queries – these are longer and more conversational searches than before. Think about how your customers would ask aloud for the information they are searching for, this will help to identify your key phrases.
In addition to making up the majority of the searches performed on the web, longtail keywords convert better, because they catch people in the advanced stages of the buying/conversion cycle. For example, a person searching for “cakes” is probably browsing, and not ready to buy. On the other hand, someone typing “Where can I buy nut-free Christmas cake?” probably has their credit card in hand!
Use the right tools to source the best ingredients
In a well-equipped kitchen there’s no need to use a wine bottle for a rolling-pin, and, thankfully, there are numerous web tools available to help you identify your keywords. Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner provides a useful starting point for keyword and key phrase research, not least because it’s free and fairly straightforward to use.
Enter your keywords and phrases and it will show you what people are actually searching for and how many people are searching for your key phrase on a monthly basis.
Tip: Don’t waste your time going after highly competitive keywords with on-site optimization; it’s much easier to score a top ranking with a less competitive keyword and phrases that are right for you and your business.
As any chef worth his sultanas knows, you must start with the right basics to produce a successful dish, and there’s no time like the present really think about, research and analyse your keywords. So, clear a workspace in your mind and spend some time getting your finest ingredients together. In our next blog we’ll start blending them to make some mouth-watering content!
