Developing and maintaining a keyword list may help an ecommerce business understand shoppers and do a better job of marketing to them. The better a marketer understands the language consumers use to find a company’s products, the more that marketer understands about the needs and wants of those prospects, and the better those needs and wants can be described in, say, blog posts, on social media, or even in advertising. You will find product categories, such as “Home, Garden & Tools,” that have long lists of subcategories, including “Kitchen & Dining,” “Furniture,” and “Bed & Bath.” Image: Amazon. See how the search engine interprets a given keyword or phrase and what words or combination of words your competition is using. As an example, a brick-and-click, omnichannel retailer in the United States had the term “snow thrower” on its list of keyword phrases. While the ads tended to use the original phrase, the top organic results for “snow thrower” included the keyword “snow blower.” While it is clear that Google considers these terms to be synonyms, it may be a good idea to either add “snow blower” to the list of keywords or use it to replace “snow thrower.” To help decide which phrase is better or whether you need to add a keyword or replace one, consider using Google Trends. Webmaster tools from Google or Bing also include solutions that help identify keywords from your site’s content. Look, also, at your analytics data to discover how existing traffic is finding your site on search engines. Next Steps At the end of this process, you should have an extensive list of the words and phrases that describe your ecommerce business and its products. Draw some conclusions about your customers and prospects from the words they use to talk about your business and the products it sells.
Keywords are an important building block for ecommerce marketing. Developing and maintaining a keyword list may help an ecommerce business understand shoppers and do a better job of marketing to them.
In the context of search engine optimization, searchers’ words or phrases summarize intent — the searchers’ thoughts, questions, or needs. Those keywords represent the language people use to ask for help finding resources online.
Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo are successful when they properly interpret keywords and connect users with answers or solutions online.
For marketers, keywords represent an opportunity to (a) speak a shopper’s language, (a) draw insights from the words shoppers choose, (c) help connect those consumers to the products or services they want, and (d) generate profit in the process.
The better a marketer understands the language consumers use to find a company’s products, the more that marketer understands about the needs and wants of those prospects, and the better those needs and wants can be described in, say, blog posts, on social media, or even in advertising.
Idea and Purpose
To develop your keyword list, start with your store’s main idea. What is the one simple phrase that describes what your ecommerce business is or does?
Does your online shop sell “discount fishing supplies” or, perhaps, “men’s fashion clothing”? Is your website a place to “discover new toys and games” or find products on “technology’s bleeding edge”?
You can ask friends or business associates to help you think of the best phrases to describe what your ecommerce business is about. You could also conduct a focus group with representatives from your primary customer groups.
Collect these keyword phrases into an initial list.
Products and Categories
Next, add to your list keywords and phrases for important products and categories.
To start with, what are the headlines your company uses to describe product categories?
As an example, look at the departments on Amazon. You will find product categories, such as “Home, Garden & Tools,” that have long lists of subcategories, including “Kitchen & Dining,” “Furniture,” and “Bed & Bath.”
Image: Amazon.
Each Amazon product subcategory may also have more refined categories beneath it. Under “Furniture” a shopper can browse for bedroom furniture, living room furniture, kids’ furniture, and even entryway furniture.
Add all of these sorts of product terms to your initial list of keywords.
Refine Keywords
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