Helen | 29 Sep 2015

The phrase ‘Shropshire Star’ is searched for more than 200,000 times a month in Google – meaning the newspaper tops a poll of the 100 most popular Shropshire keywords.
Research carried out by digital marketing expert Helen Culshaw shows the regional newspaper receives more than seven times the number of monthly searches on Google as the second most popular keyword – ‘Shropshire’.
Other phrases making the top 20 search list are Shropshire Council, Shropshire Fire and Rescue, Shropshire Petals, Shropshire weather, Shropshire Hills, Shropshire jobs and Shropshire Homes.
Also making it into the top 100 keywords is ‘Shropshire slasher’ – a name made famous by a Daffy Duck cartoon which tells the supposed tale of the Shropshire Slasher and ‘A Shropshire Lad’ – the collection of poems about Shropshire by poet AE Housman.
Ms Culshaw, managing director of Ascendancy in Shifnal, said: “The research is really fascinating and has thrown up some quite unexpected and quirky results.
“The Shropshire Star is by far the most searched for term on Google that includes the word ‘Shropshire’.
“It demonstrates that the Shropshire Star is a very powerful brand and, with the digital shift in newspapers, people are choosing to get their news updates online.”
The research was carried out by Ms Culshaw and her team as a bit of fun, however more and more businesses are opting to invest in keyword research to boost search engine rankings.
Ms Culshaw said: “Google fields more than 100 billion search queries per month from people all over the world. Searches can be for anything and everything, so for businesses to stand a chance of ranking in organic searches, websites need to be properly optimised for appropriate keywords.
“Keyword research is an incredibly useful process which enables businesses to use the right words and create smarter content on their websites.
“The research is also helpful to find out what topics and phrases they should be using and writing about in blogs and articles which are then posted onto their websites.”
Ascendancy, which was recently handpicked by Google from 30,000 UK based agencies for an exclusive business coaching programme, has been operating for more than 10 years and is a leading specialist search engine marketing agency.
The full list of the most popular Shropshire phrases searched for in Google can be viewed at ascendancy.agency/shropshire/
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