Categories: Marketing Tips

Using Word Clouds for Real Marketing

Word clouds (or tag clouds) are nothing new. They’ve become quite common over the past 15 years, mostly for personal use or as an interesting visual to accompany a blog post, for example.

A Fresh Take on Word Clouds

Consider using word clouds in your marketing! Here are a few different ideas:

  1. Brand Perception – Ever wonder how people perceive your brand? Run your URL through a word cloud generator, such as JasonDavies.com, to see the words your website uses most often. These are likely the words that site visitors will associate with your brand.
  2. Content Creation – Do you ever wonder if your blog posts or other content topics are getting stale? Run your blog URL through a word cloud generator to get a sense of the topics you write about most often. If your audience is engaged and coming back for more, you’re right on track – keep producing more quality content on your topic. If your visitors are dwindling, try writing on a new topic to really pique their interests.
  3. Public Relations – PR outreach can be tricky. The #1 rule is to always research a writer’s topics of interest and past work before sending a pitch. Creating a word cloud from their blog or articles is a quick and easy way to see what topics he or she writes about most often. Craft your pitch accordingly.
  4. Search Engine Optimization – SEO is all about context. Google uses not only your keywords, but also the surrounding text to contextualize your business. Curious about the context in which your keywords are being used? Run your website through a word cloud generator to get an idea of the words most often used on your site. If you don’t see words related to your industry, products, or services in a word cloud of your homepage, Google may not be picking up on the connection either. This also works great for analyzing webpages that are linking to your site. In order to have the most impact, try to get links from webpages that have the same contextual targets as yours. In other words, a marketing agency should have links from websites discussing marketing tips and strategies, not from a blog post about goldfish or basketball.

Word cloud above generated from www.clarityqst.com/feed on JasonDavies.com

Brian Shilling

Brian is our Executive Vice President of Client Operations with experience leading diverse teams of marketers and designers in strategic marketing, content creation, and crafting comprehensive messaging and positioning platforms for our healthcare and tech clients. To learn more about Brian's experiences and qualifications, visit our leadership team page.