Finding the Right Keywords: Bathroom Blogfest 2010

Would you agree that success in business nowadays has a lot to do with choosing the right words?  Keywords and phrases help define us in our minds as well as the minds of our customers.  If our words don't match up with their words, we're doomed. Think 'commode' vs. 'toilet' as we discovered last year during Bathroom Blogfest.

Online Plumbing Evangelist Allan Dick in Talking with Vintage Tub & Bath CMO Allan Dick explains that selling online also benefits off-line stores. I suggest that the same is true for any business. If you can't be found online, you don't exist.

What, then, is the solution for being found?

Find the right keywords! Describe yourself and your expertise succinctly, using terms relevant to your audience. Be sure to include those terms on your website in your content and elsewhere online where you describe yourself and your company [e.g., your LinkedIn profile].

[See WSJOnline.com In Search of Traffic which quotes Dick.]

Dick recommends that retailers "go deep into a market. The big boys almost always go wide. You can then beat them on services and knowledge in your specific market."  I suggest that this is true for most small to medium businesses

Once you've identified the right keywords, be constantly on the lookout for information about how your visitors find you online. Validate and pressure-check your words. Be ready to mine your web analytics reports for additional ideas for relevant content. [See How to Find Content Ideas in Your Web Analytics Report from Content Marketing Institute.] This allows you to go even deeper!

By the way, Online Plumbing Evangelist's most memorable bathrooms are those at the Hearst Castle in California and in rural Italian train stations - obviously for different reasons!

You should also consider social media marketing where, not only will the right keywords help you to strengthen your presence and be found online, but you'll also be able to go deep and establish yourself undeniably as an expert in your category.

To quote Mitch Joel from Six Pixels of Separation in Is Social Media Right For Every Business?:

"What if you sell toilet paper? Are Social Media still right for your business? Charmin released an iPhone app called, Sit or Squat, which allows you to locate, rate, comment on and even add the whereabouts of a clean public toilet. The feature-rich application also allows you to narrow your search to bathrooms that have a baby-changing station (as one of many examples). This crowd-sourced initiative has been downloaded millions of times and - as someone who travels as frequently as I do - has a special place on the first home page of my iPhone. Charmin is enabling and empowering people like you and me to share with the intent of having a better bathroom experience (with the hope you'll consider buying Charmin toilet paper as you make your way through your grocer's aisle). If Charmin can make toilet paper social, what's got you all blocked up?"

By the way, Vintage Tub publishes the Daily Tubber Blog.

Ready to start finding the right keywords? Let me know what you come up with.


Happy Bathroom Blogfest 2010!