Search Engine Optimization Tip: Know thy Customer

The phrase: "know thy customer" is a cliche phrase that too many webmasters over look. The truth is, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not all about HTML, META TAGS, or KEYWORD PLACEMENT. It's really about knowing your customer, what they read, what they search for, and where they search for it.

It is important to know what kind of topics and sub-topics, they are interested.

For instance, in the duct cleaning industry, customers search for:

• duct cleaning 
• duct cleaning cost
• duct cleaning deals
• duct cleaning groupon
• duct cleaning process

You can find this information in Google, when you are making a search. On the bottom of the search results, it will show you "Searches Related To Duct Cleaning."

Notice how in searches related to duct cleaning, you find "duct cleaning cost" - this means that customers are really price oriented, and that they are searching to determine the cost. 

Another important search is with the keywords: "deals and Groupon." Prospective customers are searching for content where they can get discounts and lower prices. So it would be a good suggestion to create a blog or article that covers those keywords, and/or has synonyms to those keywords, and related text. 

"Duct cleaning process" is also a key term that is searched for. This means customers want to know more about duct cleaning, and how it works. Again, making content on the process would definitely help your website or blog to rank higher. One example of a website that is in the duct cleaning industry is Unique Providers. They have a lot of content on duct cleaning, as well as testimonials, and Youtube videos. 

Unique Providers is a duct cleaning company in Toronto.

In summary, understanding your customer will allow you to understand the content they are interested in reading. You can discover this information through a number of ways: via Google's suggested keyword tool, simply asking prospective customers, competitor's websites, and etc. 

SEO Basics: Using Meta Tags

In the past, search engines would place great value over meta tags/data. However, because of spam and other black hat techniques, it's value has been decreased by major search engines. Despite this, it is still important to know how to use meta tags and meta data to enhance your site.

What is a meta tag?

A meta tag allows you to describe your site - enabling search engines to better define the purpose and text of your site. It often looks like this:

<META NAME="KEYWORDS" Content="KEYWORD1, KEYWORD2, KEYWORD3"

Note: That the site title and your top keywords should be listed in your meta tags. When listing ensure, that those keywords also appear in the text (paragraph and body of your website). Even in the "alt" text in your pictures, and file names.

What is the meta description?

The meta description is a piece of text that enables snippets to appear in search engines. Have you ever searched something and saw text in the search result? That is the snippet. Snippets do not have much SEO value (in fact, many SEO specialists say that it does not have any). 

Here are some tips when using meta description: 

• When using the meta description it is most advisable to have it 150-160 length. 
• Try to employ 2 to 3 keywords
• Make sure it entices the user to click
• Normally it should include brief description, and something that would catch the readers interest

Another interesting fact to note is that there are situations where you should not employ a meta description on your page. This is when you have multiple articles, text, blogs, entries, pictures, on a page or website - and you want it to be naturally crawled. Having something naturally crawled is great for long-tail phrases and when you want a larger amount of content to be crawled.

Written by Website TOON:  SEO Toronto - Toronto's Search Engine Optimization Team
We provide SEO services and web development to businesses all over Canada.