The action taken to pick keywords – picking the right keywords and phrases and ensuring a proper mix of different types of keywords – influences, to a great extent, the success of  a website positioning and optimization strategy. In fact, the search engine optimization (SEO) process for the website starts with the vital step of picking the keywords that people will likely enter while searching for the types of products or services offered on the website.

Keywords may be of various types. One classification may be single-word, multiple-word, and theme-based keywords. Another may be in terms of the type of search they predominantly support depending on how potential customers key in their search terms i.e. broad-match, phrase-match, exact-match, or negative match. Still another may be a target-market specific classification such as ‘business-specific’, ‘service-specific’, ‘geographic’ or ‘general’ keywords.

Pick keywords with the aim of generating adequate volume of qualified traffic; helping visitors in their buying-decision process; and finally, helping to convert prospects to customers. Generally, keywords selected should a judicious mix to take care of broad-match (usually single-word) and phrase-match or exact-match (usually keyword phrases) searches; the former to generate traffic and the latter to filter and channelize quality traffic. Picking ‘business-specific’ or ‘service-specific’ keywords, when applicable, help facilitate the visitor’s buying decision while ‘power’ or ‘action’ words, such as, say, ‘buy now’ used in keyword phrases can help conversions. ‘Geographic’ keywords can also be very useful for websites (and online businesses) catering to a localized or geographically delineated market. Online keyword research tools can greatly help to effectively pick keywords.

Service specific keywords are a sub-set of business specific keywords especially geared for service oriented businesses. Whatever be the industry segment and service offering, the success of a website (and, consequently, of the business it represents) depends on its ability to achieve high search engine rankings and conversions. This will, in turn, depend upon the inclusion of relevant and focused keywords (service-specific keywords) within the content pages.

Service specific keywords (and, in fact, all business or product specific keywords) need to be carefully developed  by identifying  and combining important product or service features (usually known to the business owner) with market specific characteristics such as customer demographics, buying habits, geographical delineation etc (available through market research and keyword research initiatives). The aim should be to try and identify keywords that potential customers are likely to use.

As with all business specific keywords, most service specific keywords are long tail keyword phrases (generally 3 – 4 keyword phrases). They tend to decrease the frequency of ad displays for paid advertising (many websites offer advertising based on keyword targeting so an advertisers banner will only show when a specific keyword is entered);  or reduce the volume of general website traffic (which can, however, be balanced with inclusion of some judiciously chosen broad-match single-word keywords) for organic searches. However, the traffic generated, albeit lesser in volume, is highly focused and amenable (qualified) to a higher rate of conversion. It is advisable to include location specific markers in the service specific keywords if the business caters to local markets or to a geographically delineated market.