What’s In a Name? For Keywords, Alot!

September 20, 2010 - When you're developing the keywords and phrases for your website to enhance your search engine optimization you may not think much about using words that are interchangeable in everyday speech. When we talk and write normally there are some words that have pretty much the same meaning in casual speak - lawyer and attorney, for example.

Our word choice can differ drastically between speaking and typing on the Internet.

You may use one phrase one minute, and switch to the other in a later statement. While your meaning remains the same, the words change, and there's nothing wrong with that.

That is, until you're writing for the Internet and search engines.

All you need to do is plug the two words into Google's AdWords Keyword Tool and you can see the amazing difference in use. The term "lawyer" only brings up about 9.1 million hits, while "attorney" gives us 13.6 million hits. Obviously, there's a HUGE difference in how we search vs. how we talk!

Of course, you can't just go by a single word, because that's just poor keyword practice. You should be focusing on more robust key phrases comprised of several relevant search terms. More descriptive key phrases such as "Houston Personal Injury Attorney" or "Seattle Criminal Defense Lawyer" are not only better suited to get you serious client traffic, they're also better to rank your site higher on search engine results.

When you develop your key phrases, known as "long-tail" key phrases, you should experiment a bit with the keyword tool and switching between "lawyer" and "attorney" when marketing your law firm website. Some key phrases may be more suited for one over the other, and a couple 1,000 more search hits can't hurt, can it?

If all of this is too time-consuming or frustrating, there are companies like We Do Web Content there to help you! We understand the ins and outs of developing strong key phrases for your practice areas to drive the kind of traffic you want to your website. When your business is looking for quality, custom content to boost the search engine rankings for your website, contact us today!  1-888-521-3880