Oh, but you'd be surprised how many websites miss this point!
Think about it - search engines are just machines. All they can do is match up the words that people type in to their computers and laptops and mobile devices - with the words that are on the website pages. Or blog pages, or press release pages, etc. You get the point. Yes, there are semantic rules, there are placement rules, there are many rules, but the bottom line is if your audience is typing in "abc" and you're marketing "xyz" - you will not get the abc audience to your website.
Okay, enough said of that - let me show you a cool tool on how to find out what your audience is looking for. You may already know about it and hopefully you're using it but just in case you're not...
It's Google Insights. Truly a great way to see what's happening, what's been happening in your industry. So, here's how I use it for my keyword research.
1) When you go to Google Insights you can choose to look for a keyword phrase either by search term, by location or by time range. I usually use search term. Then on the filter on the right, I choose either worldwide or country specific (depending on whom I'm doing the keyword research for) and I almost always choose the last 12 months as my time range. Reason is it doesn't usually matter to me (or my client) what people were searching for 2 years ago or how the phrase has changed in popularity in that time. I think the last 12 months is a good enough gauge for my purposes. I also leave the categories section at All Categories - just makes it easier.
Example One - Divorce
1) So, let's say I'm getting some keyword phrases for a divorce attorney. So, I type in the phrase "divorce" - that attorney is in the US in Indiana. Okay, so I type in "divorce" choose US and Indiana and choose the last 12 months.
2) My results are that the area of "Beech Grove" in Indiana has a very high interest in "divorce" and the top search term is "divorce indiana". This tells me that if my client is doing any local advertising, he/she should be doing it in Beech Grove and if the client is not marketing "divorce indiana" on any of his/her website pages, that needs to be added.
3) But what if I want to know more general terms than just Indiana? Well, then I just remove "Indiana" from the equation and choose "all subregions". Doing the search again shows me that the state of "Georgia" has a high interest in divorce. (I wonder if the number of churches correlates with the interest in divorce?). But I also see that the phrase "how to divorce" is a top phrase nationwide. That may be something that would be worth marketing.
Example Two - Sound Insulation
1) Using the parameters of the entire US and the last 12 months, I type in "sound insulation".
2) The results show that the state of Washington is the top state for sound insulation. How can this information help my client? I don't necessarily need to know how it can help my client because I'm not in the daily meetings of my clients' company but I can certainly give this information to him/her.
3) There are top phrases like "insulation for sound", "foam insulation", "home sound insulation" - but a keyword phrase that has incrased by 40% in the las 12 months is "sound proofing insulation". That tells me that I better do my best to get my client marketing that keyword phrase!
So, isn't this a cool tool? Check out Google Insights, I'm sure you'll love it.