What Keyword Should I Choose?

When I worked at an agency, I forbade my team from using a bad word: “keyword.” When people think of the keyword, they become so laser-focused that they become obsessed and often miss out on significant opportunities.

Think About Topics

Nowadays, Google doesn’t necessarily think of a keyword in its algorithm. They’re thinking more about the topic. If you’ve been doing SEO for a while, you probably remember when we used to produce a page for lawyers and another for attorneys, to hit both words. But now, Google knows they’re synonymous. We need to stop thinking in terms of the keyword and instead think in terms of our topic.

UPDATE: I wrote this several years ago. I think it’s even more true in an LLM world. People are not asking ChatGPT for a word, but a topic. Now we need to understand the topics our potential clients are searching for so we can do AIO and reach them.

Think About Your Audience

If we start thinking about what our potential customers are searching for, it will prevent us from making common SEO mistakes. We start to think about our customers rather than our internal marketing jargon. I had a client who was trying to promote high-performance sports undergarments. They spent millions of dollars on a branding campaign about high-performance sports undergarments. That’s great, except that nobody knows what a high-performance sports undergarment is (it’s underwear).

When you think about that example in terms of the client, you might say, “Our high-performance sports undergarment is more than underwear,” but you need to acknowledge that people might search for the wrong phrase. Customers searching for underwear might be looking for a high-performance undergarment. When you think about the product or service in terms of the audience who will be searching for it, you’re better able to cover all your bases with SEO. And who wouldn’t be happy with that?

Sometimes, Customers Search for the Wrong Thing

This is especially true for B2B companies. I guarantee you that we will be happy to take money from someone who searched for the wrong thing. So, think about it in terms of how your audience is looking for it.