In keeping with yesterday’s theme of PPC and SEO as joint tactics, it’s probably appropriate to highlight a key tool in your PPC efforts: your organic search results.

Ok, I know…you’re likely using paid search stuff because you can’t rank organically for some stuff. That’s ok, but you’d be surprised how much you’ll learn about your site and some marketing if you check out the keyphrases that you rank for organically. (By the way, amusing terms will often show in that regard. Just ask Naomi.)

For my SEO clients, I provide the top organic terms they rank for every month. A lot of times it’s the name of the company, so set that aside. Where it gets interesting is when you: 1) see terms you’re not bidding on or 2) realize customers search for you differently than you categorize yourself.

Seeing keywords you’re not bidding on.

I audited a campaign for a dental company once upon a time, for example. Terms like “dentures” did well, and despite the keyword research for their verticals, these were extremely large campaigns and some keywords were bound to fall through the cracks. They had a few denture-related terms, mostly things related to affordable and stuff like that. I asked to check out their Analytics.

I checked the first few organic words, and found they were ranking really well for them. So instead, I skipped to some stuff lower down on the list…things that weren’t getting tons of traffic, but enough visits that it wasn’t a fluke. It started to uncover patterns where dental  insurance plans were being searched along with the denture terms. This opened up a whole new ad group for them, focusing on two new areas they hadn’t been touching previously. This might sound like a “well duh” moment, but this was a national company, and a lot of time there are chasms in that stuff when it’s a locally-oriented terms. A marketing person sitting in Washington probably isn’t thinking about a dental plan that exists in Maryland. With organic keywords though, it tells them to think about it. Voila – new search terms added to the Maryland campaign to cast that net just a little wider.Seeing

Seeing variations of terms you hadn’t considered.

One of the harder things you’ll do as a business is owner is to ditch the owner’s hat and think like a potential customer. It’s hard for most business owners, and I know I’m no exception. I can’t assume that people who search for SEO even know what that is. I have to step back and say “They don’t want SEO. They want to show up in the search engine rankings.” (And I have to not use the word SERP, because this same group doesn’t know that stands for Search Engine Result Pages.)

It’s incredibly important that you pay attention to how customers look for your services. As a business owner, it’s so easy to get in the mindset that you have to look better than your competition…and you wind up talking in speak that your competitor will understand. While you’re trying to make them shake in their boots by talking about your latest hydraulic system for industrial steel doors, you’re losing a building contractor who is working his first job and needs a door supplier.

In other words, be aware how your CUSTOMERS would search for you, not how YOU would search for you. I once worked with a small apartment company that specialized in short-term rentals – usually for folks that relocated for a job, or had a house fire and their insurance company was giving them living expenses while the house was repaired, things like that.

They swore up and down they weren’t a version of Extended Stay hotels, and things of the like.

Ok, they weren’t, because they were actual apartments and a lot nicer. But guess what? Consumers don’t know that. They have no clue why you’re different apart from the price tag.

They also swore up and down they only did short term rentals and not long term rentals.

Ok: define that for me. Your definition of those terms are exact, but they’re more fluid for customers. Is short term 30 days? 90 days? What’s long term? You don’t know what THEY consider those terms. Forget what your internal corporate definition is, because your searchers are not mind readers.

Let your customer’s fingers be your guide.

If you look at your organic terms (even if you’re not ranking well yet) you’ll get a lot of insight. In many ways, you’re just employing the age-old practice of what you should do: listening to your customers.