YOUR MARKET


Talk like them...

Your customers fall into keyword categories - and each category has certain appeals and ways of describing what they're looking for on the 'net.

To achieve top search results, your web marketing research needs to take the linguistic characteristics of your target market's various 'layers' into account. Often, your market's choice of terminology will hinge upon how they perceive the benefits or characteristics of the item they are searching for… but not always.

As an example, let's say your firm sells software for managing the accounting function. Those market segments represented by accountants and CPAs might enter a search string such as "accounting systems" or "accounting software" - perhaps modified by a geographical locator, such as "Orange County", if they were seeking a local supplier. Thus - the accountant would enter "accounting systems, Orange County" into their Yahoo search string.

From December, 2004 through September of 2005 - this particular search string brought up NetPathBusinessSystems.com ("ahem" - one of our websites) at or near the top of page one search results. As of July of 2009, the website still places on page one of Yahoo. (NOTE: website, NetPathBusinessSystems.com, has now been retired)

To take this example a bit further, if we were also trying to "scoop up" bookkeepers and office managers - often in charge of billing, recording receipts and disbursements - we might use the term "bookkeeping" in our string since most information workers at this level refer to accounting functions as "bookkeeping."

Keeping the Orange County 'modifier' in mind - we would also optimize our site to achieve high search engine placement on the phrase "bookkeeping systems, Orange County".

Again, as above, we note that for December 2004 - this phrase brings up our website - NetPathBusinessSystems.com, as the first search result on page one. As of August of 2009, the website still places on page one of Yahoo.

Finally, for this example, our market also includes a layer of Chief Executive Officers who, our research has shown - usually refer to software of this type as "business software" or "business systems". Now, in order to achieve good website search results for this market layer as well, we use the "high value keyword results" phrase - "business software, Orange County" in anticipation of achieving top search position for this market layer (Presidents, CEOs, etc.) as well.

As you might guess, at least in late December of 2004 - our accounting software site, NetPathBusinessSystems.com, came up as number one on page one - but had slipped near the bottom of the first page by September of 2005. There is a reason for this - see the sidebar >>>

In August of 2009, this website was back to number 4 - below Sponsored Results.

NOTE! This website, NetPathBusinessSystems.com, has now been retired.