In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, search terms are like gold. But one search engine optimization expert (SEO) says companies should be more concerned with care words than search words.
In his newsletter New Thinking, Gerry McGovern says that the terms people use when they search are not exactly what they are looking for when they get a result. Companies must take this into consideration when they use search engine optimization (SEO).
McGovern says an example of this is vacationers looking to find a place to stay. Although he says about 25 million people search for the term "cheap hotel" over the course of a year, a definition of "cheap" can differ among those people.
"I have often searched for a "cheap hotel" but I’m not actually looking for a ‚cheap‘ hotel," he writes. "What I’m really looking for is a 4 or 5 star hotel at a cheap price."
Search words, McGovern says, are still important to bring customers to a site, but once they get there, there’s a need for care words – which tend to be "softer and more subtle" than the shorter and more precise counterparts used by the site visitor at the search engine stage to take them through the site.
Another thing search engine optimization (SEO) professionals might want to consider is using search terms that are a little less popular. SearchEngineLand’s Aaron Wall says that with less competition, less popular terms are likely to garner more traffic.
