Clicks 'n Conversions Blog

This article was first published  July 16, 2008 on the Tatum Marketing blog

Today’s search engine marketing tip for technology marketers covers the first “rule” of keyword selection: choose the words your prospects will use to find a product or service like yours.

Read that sentence again. This is very different from using the words you use to describe your product.

I realize this is a big challenge for technology marketers and sales people alike. And it isn’t confined to search engine marketing. But if you don’t drop the jargon here, you’ll surely waste a lot of money.

The solution is relatively simple – take the time to learn what your customers really call your products or services. Stop using your own internal terminology and start using your customers’.

You could hire a market research firm to do this for you, but why? It’s not that hard. Here are four very good– and not too difficult – ways to find out how your customers think about your products.

1. Ask them. Get on the phone and just ask. Listen carefully because sometimes they think of your product in terms of the problem it solves rather than the product itself. You’ll want to consider these keywords too.
2. Poll your customer-facing employees: sales, customer service, technical support and any other group that interacts with your customers. Find out what questions your customers are asking and what words they use.
3. Look at your website traffic stats. Most web analytics applications show you what keywords searchers use to find your site. This is an incredibly powerful bit of information.
4. Look at what keywords your competitors are using. Beware though – they may be suffering from jargonitis themselves.

You can read more about keyword selection in our recent article Scouting for the Best Keywords.