You can never have enough data about your small businesses’ keywords – the phrases that people type into a search engine to find you.  As you probably know already, either through experience or reading through our resources like the bestseller DIY SEO guide, you can get a lot of this knowledge for free with a little sleuthing and hard work.

But many companies overlook one key way to find their perfect keywords…

Ask Your Customers

Change your feedback form to include the question “How would you find us in Google?”  Play around with the wording, but I chose the word “would” intentionally – you don’t really care what keyword eventually worked, as you can find that in Analytics.  You want to know what was the first thing they tried, because that’s the keyword you want to be on.

You also want to make sure they understand you’re asking them about keywords – you might just have to spell it out for them: “what words would you type into Google to find us?”  In my experience, more often than not, when consumers answer one of these referral questions like ‘who told you about us,’ they just say the Internet, which is a charming answer but doesn’t give you anything helpful.

You will also need to play around with where/when you ask this question.  For you, it might be better to ask at the time of taking a booking.  For others it might be useful to do so with a follow-up feedback form.  (You do ask for feedback, right?)

This information only works in aggregate, so don’t start spending time or money for one goofy answer.  Look for trends and commonalities.

To Learn More…

Take advantage of everything you need to know about the world of search in our popular do-it-yourself guide, DIY SEO – Do It Yourself Search Optimization.  It’s an ethical, practical guide to all-things-search and full of other expert tips.

Photo by TMAB2003