Keyword Research

Comprehensive keyword research is the core of any SEO strategy. Target the wrong keywords and you risk receiving unqualified or very little traffic to your site. Keyword research provides the basis for developing content on your website and also creates a starting point for the keyword list in your paid search campaign.

The ultimate goal of keyword research is to determine the competitiveness of a given keyword, the relevance of the keyword to your products and services, and to define the popularity of that keyword as a predictive measure of traffic. The most relevant keywords with the least amount of competition and the highest search volume will make your primary keyword list. Businesses planning to develop large content sites or businesses with extensive product inventory can target the long tail of search since those sites will have a large amount of pages. Typically a page should be optimized for only one or two search terms. The long tail applies to the set of keywords that individually receive much less traffic but when combined actually account for a significant amount of the total traffic a site receives. These secondary long tail terms tend to convert much better because they are more targeted (specific) phrases indicating greater purchase intent. 

Keyword Research Tools

There are numerous tools available online to conduct keyword research. Some tools display the amount of recent searches conducted over a given period, while others also provide the competitiveness of that keyword phrase. Competitiveness if usually defined as the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). KEI was coined by Sumantra Roy. It is a mathematical expression that assigns a value to keywords based on the keyword’s search volume and the total number of internet sites optimized for that term.

A few of the free keyword research services are:

• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool
• Google Adwords Keyword Tool
• Good Keywords

Some paid services/software include:

• WordZe
• Wordtracker
• Nichebot
• The Dowser
• Keyword Collector
• WebCEO

Some methods of determining how difficult it might be to achieve top 20 placement for a search term can be done by performing a few online searches. The two most important things you will need to know is how many other sites on the internet are targeting that same keyword phrase and how many inbound links those top sites have. (Review the importance of a link building strategy for acquiring inbound links here.) One of the most important elements of on-page search engine optimization is to use your keyword phrase in the Title of the page. By finding out how many websites are using this keyword phrase in the title you will have a general sense of how many optimized sites you will be competing with.

In the Google search field type:
intitle: and your search phrase. A search for intitle:seo returns 4,580,000 sites that have seo in the title. Ouch! That is some stiff competition! Now you select the top three sites from the search results to find out how many links they each have pointing at them. To check backlinks, you can use a backlink tool provided by WeBuildPages. You can very generally conclude that to outrank the top sites for that particular search term, you will need to have a greater backlink count than they have.

Mining For Keywords

Another technique for finding quality keywords to target is to mine your own web analytics data. This will give you valuable insight into the phrases people are actually using to find your site. Creating new pages and optimizing your site for the organic and paid search terms that are converting well on your site but aren't necessarily ranking well, is another valuable technique. If your site has an internal site search function, mining those search terms can also provide valuable keywords to develop content around.

Remember that keyword research is a basis for developing quality content that provides value to your site visitors. A balance must be struck between optimization techniques and writing content that is valuable, unique and reads well. In addition to keyword research and search engine optimization services, we also provide seo copywriting.

Give us a call to discuss the challenges you are facing with your keyword list. Reach us at 970-946-5387 or drop us an email.