Analytics and Optimization…A Catch 22?

I just read a post about tailoring your site copy based on keyword phrases you find in your analytics reports (your website analytics reports will tell you what search terms visitors are using to get to your site).  The post suggests that you should optimize for these keywords because it will help drive traffic to your site.  I’ve heard this many times before, and it always sounded like good advice, but it got me thinking...isn’t this a catch-22? 

People find your site based, in part, on what your site already says.  Those words and phrases are in your analytics reports because they either already appear on your site pages or are used in links pointing to your site.  Now you can increase traffic by optimizing for those keywords, but it doesn’t answer the more fundamental question: what keywords are searchers using to find the service you’re selling?  Your analytics shouldn’t answer this question because they’re based only on what your site already “says” (in quotes because I mean that in the largest sense of the word).

Put more simply, if you’re an employment lawyer in New Jersey, you shouldn’t find the following keyword phrase in your analytics report “treatment for low voltage electric shock” (an unfortunate search I recently had to run ).  That phrase wont be there because you don’t deal in that subject matter.  The important thing to note is that you’re not going to find “New Jersey whistleblower laws” if your site doesn’t already address that topic.  The bottom line is that your first SEO mission is to ensure that your site discusses all of the legal topics that your ideal client is likely to face.  Once you’ve done that, you can then sort out which phrases are driving the most traffic.

Thanks!