An important part of building your personal brand is to get others to recognize your expertise or influence on certain topics. These topics of influence can be described with keywords: the important words or phrases you use consistently on your blog or social media posts when creating content.
So your action step is to first, create a short list of keywords that you want to be associated with.
Add keywords based on your work:
Some of the keywords may be easy to quickly to come up with, based on your business, products or goals. For example, on this blog, my focus is on personal branding, work-life balance, and positive motivation. So those would be 3 keyword phrases on my list.
Additional keywords may include words/phrases that describe your target audience. If most of my work-life balance posts are targeted towards mompreneurs, then I would add that keyword to my list.
Your keywords would include words/phrases that describe you or or your brand. Business coach, social media strategist…might be a few to put on my list.
Search for keywords based on your industry:
There may be other keywords being used in your industry that could give your brand good exposure, but you’re not quite sure of what they are.
Do some research, using tools and social media sites.
1. Check out industry “Influencers” on social media – What keywords or hashtags show up in their posts on a regular basis?
2. Find your customers (or potential customers) on social media – What keywords, topics or hashtags are they using?
3. Research hashtags using tools like Tagboard.com or Hashtagify.me to find the ones that are trending in your industry. Want to learn more about hashtags and their importance in social media? Click here to check out this post on my blog at League Computer Solutions.
4. Learn what keywords people are already using when visiting your site with Google Analytics or another tool. Click here to see a list of Keyword Research tools by Pam Dyer that might help.
Use your top keywords consistently
Now that you’ve put together a list of your top keywords, use them in your blog posts. Note that your posts should be written for your readers, and not just for search engines.
Put your keywords in posts on social media sites. Again, make sure that your posts are written with your target audience in mind and not just for keyword optimization. Keep in mind that hashtags are a popular way for people to search for topics they’re interested in, so use them in your content strategy.
Make sure your top keywords are included in your social media profiles. Wherever you have space for a bio, mission statement, background or list of skills, include your top keywords as often as you can.
So take some time to create this list of your top keywords and then put a plan in place to use them consistently in your online marketing and networking efforts.
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