It’s a situation you have never before found yourself in.  It is fraught with anticipation – and potentially –danger.  And oftentimes – it can be the difference between success or failure.

It is the square zero experience – and if you find yourself developing a keyword glossary that will drive your online marketing campaigns for an indefinite amount of time – you might be in one.

For a good primer on keyword research, check out chapter 7 of Optimize, of which I am a contributor.  But showing you the implementation steps for keyword research alone isn’t enough to prepare you for the reality of creating the topical framework that will define your entire online marketing strategy – and could help shape the life of your online business.

Bringing insights about content marketing to light often involves the importance of understanding what topics and pain points customers care about. Creating content for business communications with customers, peers, employees and the industry is an essential part of doing business.

Creating content alone isn’t enough to ensure intended audiences will read it, so researching search keywords and social topics related to your business is a helpful way to empathize with what customers are looking for and what they’re interested in.

Content and SEO go hand in hand, especially for improving discovery of brand stories and key marketing messages. SEO and content marketing best practices call for research into what language customers use when searching for your products and services so that content can be optimized for better visibility. The result of that research is a keyword glossary managed through a SEO Project Management tool and/or a spreadsheet. These phrases are a mix of broad concepts the company wants to be known for as well as phrases indicating more specific customer intent.