The Internet is an incredible tool that is used by literally billions of people. The amazing thing is most people search the exact same way when using Google, Bing, Yahoo, or any search engine and your website has the potential to get found. Whether you run a small business or a huge corporation, the Internet could be the most useful marketing tool at your disposal!
So how do people use the Internet?
The numbers of how people use the Internet is astounding and holds true for every major search engine. This ‘by the numbers’ breakdown shows exactly why everyone is vying for that coveted top spot:
- 36.4%
- 12.5%
- 9.5%
- 7.9%
- 6.1%
- 4.1%
- 3.8%
- 3.5%
- 3.0%
- 2.2%
Essentially, if you are number one in Google, you almost automatically get 40% of the market you’re after. Cool right?
I would place a bet on the fact that every bank in the world would love to be number one in Google for the search term ‘bank’. I’m certain you want to be number one for your main keyword as well. Every business in every market wants to be number one – the problem is there’s only one number one spot.
This is probably your greatest challenge and getting that coveted top spot is incredibly difficult, especially if you are in a highly competitive market. It’s even more challenging if you are new to the online game.
So why bother trying if it’s that hard?
The reward for ranking high in the search engines is huge. You can literally get hundreds or even thousands of customers essentially for free. It takes some effort to achieve, but once you are there, you will see a huge return on your investment of time. As I mentioned earlier, ranking for a specific, short keyword is very difficult. Perhaps you don’t need to be number one for that one keyword you want the most.
But let’s back up for a minute here… You’re saying don’t be number one?
In a perfect world, you will be tops in Google and thousands of people will flock to your website, but ranking for a single keyword is hard.
There are ways to still get lots of traffic and you don’t necessarily need to be number one for that most sought-after, single keyword. Probably one of the strongest strategies you can implement with your online marketing campaign is by going after the long-tail keywords.
A classic example of a long-tail keyword:
Let’s assume you own a flower shop and you rely on the Internet to drive most of your sales. You just started your website and there are several flower shops in your city that have been around for years. You are way down the list when someone types in the term ‘flower shop’. What if you were to rank higher than anyone else for searches like; ‘best flower shop’, ‘affordable flowers’ or ‘top quality flowers’? You could probably get as many visitors to your site with those searches as you would get for the simple term ‘flower shop’.
Think like Your Customers
We’ve all heard the phase ‘a little competition is never a bad thing’ and that saying holds especially true with being online. If nobody is searching for your product, company or service, you probably won’t have a great deal of success online. On the opposite side of things, if you rank well for a highly competitive search term, you may witness a great deal of success.
If you put yourself in the mindset of your customers and think of how they use the internet, you will probably find a great deal of success. Think of ways they would try to find your business and use those long tail keywords throughout your website. It would be fantastic to rank for the simple keywords, but building a strategy around what your customer might search will likely be more useful for your online presence.