March 11th, 2010 by Susie

One of the biggest mistakes people make on websites is trying to over-impress visitors with technical and complicated keywords.

When creating an effective SEO campaign for your online business you have to speak to your audience in terms they understand and use keywords in your SEO strategy that they will be searching for. At this point you may think that this is like teaching grandma to suck eggs, but many people make the mistake of choosing keywords that they would search under themselves rather trying to get into the minds of their customers.

Yes, of course you want to show the world how you’re an expert in your field and so much better than the competition, but that’s why your audience is looking for you — because they are not an expert in your field. For example if your doctor told you that you had a severe case of tinia pedis you might panic, whereas if they used language you understood, although suffering with Athlete’s Foot is unpleasant, it’s not a life threatening disease and so things wouldn’t seem half as bad.

The same is true online. If you blind your audience with science they might lose interest very quickly or worse still not find the page at all.

Choosing keywords for search engine optimization is all about knowing your target audience and thinking like they do in order to come up with the keywords that they would search for. You may know the chemical compound for producing the best rubber for elastic bands, but to be honest this doesn’t interest your audience. What they want to know is; does the rubber band work well and is it strong and elastic?

Having said this there’s a fine line between making your copy easy to understand for a wide audience and being condescending towards people.  If you’re implementing SEO on a website aimed at doctors then use language they understand. The same is true for any sector where standard industry-wide terms are used and recognised.  Effective SEO and Internet reputation management is not about dumbing down your content, the key to using your SEO tools to their full potential is to really get into the minds of your customers and your target audience. This is why using a professional SEO company is often a great help as an outside view on your website copy puts a more impartial and customer-targeted slant on the information you publish.

It’s not only the use of technical language and jargon that’s important when you’re writing. Think about the age of your target audience and use language that appeals. If you’re hoping to attract young people via social media marketing (SMM) then you need to use the language that appeals to this group. But if you’re selling pensions to the over 50s then you obviously need to use keywords that they will search for, which will be a whole world away from those used by a 17-year-old.

When implementing SEO strategies, the key is to think like your audience and give them what they’re looking for, while still letting them know just how good you are.

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