I recently met with a business owner that sells manufactured homes (better known as mobile homes). The company is established and has decent branding, but lacks a Web site (thus the reason I was there). Preliminary meetings with our prospective clients normally involve quite a bit of investigation into the business, their primary target audience, and brainstorming about potential keywords. During the meeting I learned about his industry, clients, and the challenges his business encounters. He explained very clearly that they despise the term “Mobile Home” and preferred the terms “Manufactured Housing” or “Modular Homes.” I am a Real Estate Broker and have seen this marketing shift in the last several years and was not surprised.

After the meeting was over and I got back to the office to begin the research, it quickly became obvious that the business owner was not going to like what I was going to tell him. The term “mobile home” was searched approximately 5x’s more than “modular home.” If he wants to build an effective Web site for his company, he would need to optimize for the term “mobile home” – the term he despises.

This story is a prime example of what keyword research is all about. SEO is not just about making the site rank high in the search engines, it’s about doing market research and then targeting the desired traffic. Please don’t misunderstand, just because one keyword has more traffic than another, it doesn’t mean it is better for your business to optimize for that keyword. For example: As a Real Estate Broker would it be smarter to optimize for “homes for sale” (A) or “Real Estate Agent” (B)? Even though (A) may have 10x’s the amount of traffic; an individual that searches for (B) is likely a better target market. Some people can browse for homes for years without actually buying, while someone searching for the services of a Real Estate Agent is more likely to convert.

Keyword research and analysis is the basic foundation of SEO work. It can mean the difference of success or failure for your online marketing strategy. I have been fortunate enough to be involved in campaigns that actually increased specific keyword traffic via integration of Offline and Online marketing techniques. In most cases though, the human user is the driving factor which determines the direction of your SEO efforts and Web design.

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