The easiest way to know who is getting all your business. Just go onto Google and start searching for a business that does what you do, as if you were the customer. Think before you start this exercise.
Put yourself in your customers shoes. What does your customer search for? They are not searching just for a phone number or directory listing. If that’s what people searched for we wouldn’t need the internet. The Yellow Pages would do.
Your customer is searching for information, that’s why they search. They want information that’s valuable, educational. That’s what Google is in the business of delivering, quality information. When you start your search, do you know what your customers are thinking about when they sit at their keyboard?
Let’s say you are a kitchen remodeling company. Your client who wants a new kitchen probably doesn’t know where to start. But they’ll start somewhere with a few clicks. To put ourselves in the mind of our customer let’s take a look at keywords that clients search for.
Using the Google Keyword Tool I found 95 keywords under the term “Kitchen Remodeling”. Some terms you might think to discount at first because they don’t have a lot of monthly searches. But look closely at the terms. Some terms only apply to certain niche markets. For example “kitchen cabinet remodeling“. Someone searching this term isn’t looking for a complete remodel. They are looking for new cabinets. What goes with new cabinets? A kitchen cabinet remodel might open up lots of issues. Like damaging the floor or back splashes, the ceiling. Wait…I just found another. How to remodel kitchen and kitchen remodeling cost.
Here’s more terms, small kitchen remodeling costs and kitchen remodel before and after. Now we can start seeing what is in the mind of your client when they do a search. This is only the beginning. Do another search for kitchen cabinet remodel and you’ll find another list of keywords. Or just search kitchen cabinet. You’ll keep finding more terms that relate to your business. Keep searching and put these terms into your excel spread sheet.
Once you’ve put together a list of a few thousand terms, start putting together a list of those terms that most closely match your business. You might start seeing a niche emerging that you didn’t see before.
When you search for your competition you know what your customers are looking for. Now, what you want to do is write content for your web site that answers what your customer wants. Each web page will have a couple of specific keyword terms. Write your content by staying on the topic of those terms. This is what your customer wants.
This is the paradigm shift caused by the internet. Consumers no longer get what they get. They get what they want. If you deliver what they want, you are on your way to creating a relationship with your potential customer. And that’s what converts to sales and develops new word of mouth business.
So if you are getting smoked by your competition, you know the steps to start taking to reverse the trend. Even though the recession is still raging, there is business in your market. What you need to do is smoke your competition by delivering what your customer wants. Build your web site that delivers the content your customer wants, optimize it in your local market. Your customers will find you, buy from you and not your competitor.