Writing for Your Reader: Using The Right Key Words for Internet Search

I've been doing some research lately just to see how folks are searching for information and product. I think that we, as marketers, do not look at the internet like so many consumers do. We tend to look at it from a marketing point of view, and not from the position of how surfers are using the search engines.

Point in fact - if you are targeting the phrase "dog house" then you will find competition to be way over what you wish it to be from your marketing standpoint. It returns 73,700,000 competing sites, and there is no way you can go there and make money. So we, as marketers, drill down, and find the phrase "dog house for big dog." This returns 3,450,000 competing sites. Four million is still out of our range.

Here is where we need to step back and consider what our readers are really looking for. How about "how to build a dog house for a big dog?" We get a return of 16,000,000 searches. By now we are getting a big frustrated and are ready to give up hope of making any money in this niche.

I have always advised that marketers think like surfers. When we target a phrase, we use quotes to get an exact match. The average surfer wouldn't even know why this is done. And Buffy and Spanky aren't looking for plans for a dog house. They want to house their rottweiler, Twinky. So this lovable pair is going to search on a phrase such as "how to build a dog house for a rottweiler."
They aren't going to use the quotes to search, and they are going to find only 503,000 competing sites, well with in the range of the seasoned marketer to make money from. From a marketers point of view, this return shows nine Google ads on the page, an indication that money is being made with this phrase.

Remember your reader. Speak to them in their language, and don't try to shove a product down their throat. Even the average surfer can spot a come on very quickly. Instead, rely on a well written article, and a well defined bio box to get you the clicks you want.