SEO for Coaches: Finding Clarity With Your Keywords

In this post your're going to find clarity with your keywords. I have to be honest, I love keywords. Not only do they help you get found by the right people they also help your content stay on message, more on that in a minute. Keywords draw search traffic, and this means you can use them in any content that's searchable. This includes YouTube video descriptions and Facebook posts, Twitter updates, social medial profiles and anywhere you have to add a bio. That's right, anything that can be searched and anywhere you can found by prospects means you need to use keywords.

What Are Keywords?

Keywords are the phrases that people (preferably those lovely people looking for your products and services)  type into the search box of a search engine. The search engine then scoops up a heap of pages and says "ta da! this is just what you're searching for... go and click something!". The customer of a search engine is the searcher or the person looking for answers, it's not you, it's not me and we are only rewarded with better placements on the search page when someone is looking for that specific piece of content that we've created. Think about how you search when you're looking for something. Although they're called keywords, you often type sentences and questions into the search engines and if you're Ben's nan you even say please and thank you :). Keywords where you type between 1 and 3 words are known as short tail keywords. If you type in 4+ keywords in the search engine it's now a longtail keyword. Example: Short tail keyword: Homemade Milkshake Longtail Keyword: How to make a homemade chocolate milkshake Longtail keywords are superb for attracting in the perfect clients simply because the searcher knows what they're looking for.

Where to Find Keywords?

There are tools you can use to work out what your client attracting keywords are. Good keywords are the ones that people use, preferably people with a budget, also known as buyer keywords. My favourite conversation with the coaches I work with is something along these lines: Me: "What keywords are you currently optimising for?" Them: "Finding clarity" Me: "Who searches for  finding clarity?" Them: "Business owners who are looking for help with sleeping at night" Me: "And..." Them "Erm.... Erm.... Ermmmm"   And there you have it, clarity may be what they get but it's not what they're searching for. The among the most popular are the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, which is free to use. You can enter keywords around what you do and the tool will tell you how many searches your keywords get. It will also suggest other keywords to use. Remember this tool is designed to sell you Adwords, so look around at other tools. I use Market Samurai and Longtail Pro, among others. If you are on a budget, I recommend you get the free 30-day trail with Market Samurai, follow their guides and you'll swiftly earn enough to purchase the tool. There's also the SBi plugin for self-hosted WordPress sites that also have a trial that will help you get started. A paid keyword research tool is worth its weight in gold simply because it will show you a lot of the hidden gem keywords that the Adwords tool doesn't.

How to Use Keywords

There is no carved in stone guidelines where to use your chosen keywords. If possible, you should use the keyword in the title, headings and first paragraph of your content. Using Yoast SEO on your WordPress website will help you put the keywords in the right place on your site and in your content. I also use SEOpressor to optimise for several keywords and add in schema aspects to the content. The idea is to use the keywords as naturally as possible. Don't think that having lots of them in your content will make it perform better. When you "stuff" your content with keywords it becomes harder to read. We've all seen those pages that repeat the same phrase over and over and over again, and the majority of the time we click away. Keyword stuffing can also get your site penalised by the search engines. Keywords need to be read by human beings. Adding keywords in white text to a white background so the search engines can see them but people can't see them will also earn you a penalty. When it comes to keywords and your SEO, think of them as one ingredient for the recipe, and too much of them changes the flavour.

Keywords Are Not the Be-All End-All Of Getting Found

Although they go a heck of a long way in seeing you get discovered by the right people. Keywords are important for getting your content displayed in search engines, but it's not everything SEO. What's most important is that your content is original, helpful and the best quality you can manage. What will you be discovered for? Sarah