Keyword research is a vitally important aspect of your search engine optimization campaign. If your
site is targeting the wrong keywords, the search engines and your customers may never find you, resulting in lost
dollars and meaningless rankings. By targeting the wrong keywords, you not only put valuable advertising dollars at
risk, you are also throwing away all the time and energy you put into getting your site to rank for those terms to
begin with. If you want to stay competitive, you can't afford to do that.
The keyword research process can be broken down into the following phases:
- Phase 0 - Demolishing Misconceptions
- Phase 1 – Creating the list and checking it twice
- Phase 2 – Befriending the keyword research tool
- Phase 3 – Finalizing your list
- Phase 4 – Plan your Attack
- Phase 5 - Rinse, Wash Repeat
Phase 0 - Demolishing Misconceptions
As different and diverse as websites are, the individuals running them tend to have one thing in common: they were
self-proclaimed keyword research mavens right out of the gate. Or so they thought.
One of the most common misconceptions about conducting keyword research for a search engine optimization campaign
is the belief that you already know which terms a customer would use to find your site. You don't. Not without
first doing some research anyway. You may know what your site is about and how you, the site owner, would find it,
but it's difficult to predict how a paying customer would go about looking for it. This is due to site owners
evaluating their site through too narrow of a lens, causing them to come up with words that read like industry
jargon, not viable keywords. Remember, your customer probably doesn't work in the same industry
that you do. If they did, they wouldn't need you. When describing your site or product, break away from
industry speak. Your customers aren't searching that way and if you center your site on these terms, they'll never
find you.
Another misconception is that generic or "big dollar" terms are the most important for
rankings, even if the term you're going after has nothing to do with your site. Imagine a women's clothing store
trying to rank for the term "google". Sure, thousands of searchers probably type that word into their search bar
daily, but they're not doing it looking for you. They're looking for Google. Being ranked number one for a term no
one would associate with your site is a waste of time and money (and it may get you in trouble!). Your site may see
a lot of traffic, but customers won't stick around.
Phase 1 – Creating the list and checking it twice
The initial idea of keyword research can be daunting. Trying to come up with the perfect combination of words to
drive customers to your site, rev up your conversion rate and allow the engines to see you as an expert would
easily give anyone a tension headache. The trick is to start slowly.
The first step in this process is to create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorm all the words you think a
customer would type into their search box when trying to find you. This includes thinking of phrases that are
broad and targeted, buying and research-oriented, and single and multi-word. What is your site hoping to do or
promote? Come up with enough words to cover all the services your site offers. Avoid overly generic terms like
'shoes' or 'clothes'. These words are incredibly difficult to rank for and won't drive qualified traffic to your
site. Focus on words that are relevant, but not overly used.
If you need help brainstorming ideas, ask friends, colleagues or past customers for help. Sometimes they are able
to see your site differently than the way you yourself see it. Also, don't be afraid to take a peek at your
competitor's Meta Keyword tag. What words are they targeting? How can you expand on their keyword list to make
yours better? It's okay to get a little sneaky here. All's fair in love and search engine rankings.
Phase 2 – Befriend the keyword research tool
Now that you have your list, your next step is to determine the activity for each of your proposed keywords. You
want to narrow your list to only include highly attainable, sought-after phrases that will bring the most qualified
traffic to your site. In the early days of SEO, measuring the "popularity" of your search
terms was done by performing a search for that phrase in one of the various engines and seeing how many results it
turned up. As you can imagine, this was a tedious and ineffective method of keyword research. Luckily, times have
changes and we now have tools to do the hard part for us.
By inputting your proposed keywords into a keyword research tool, you can quickly learn how many users are
conducting searches for that term every day, how many of those searches actually converted, and other important
analytical information. It may also tune you in to words you had previously forgotten or synonyms you weren't aware
of. There are lots of great tools out there to help you determine how much activity your keywords are receiving.
Here's a few of our personal favorites:
Keep in mind that you're not only checking to see if enough people are searching for a particular word, you're also t
rying to determine how competitive that phrase is in terms of rankings. Understanding the competition tells you
how much effort you will need to invest in order to rank well for that term. There are two things to pay attention
to when making this decision: how many other sites are competing for the same word and how strong are those sites'
rankings (i.e. how many other sites link to them, how many pages do they have indexed)? Basically, is that word or
phrase even worth your time? If it's not, move on.
While you're testing your new terms, you may want to do a little housekeeping and test the activity for keywords
your site is already targeting. Keep the ones that are converting and drop the losers.
Phase 3 – Finalizing your list
Now that you have your initial list of words and have tested their activity, it's time to narrow down the field and
decide which terms will make it into your coveted final keyword list. We recommend creating a spreadsheet or some
other visual that will allow you to easily see each word's conversion rate, search volume and competition rate
(as given to you by the tools mentioned above). These three figures will allow you to calculate how viable that
term is for your site and will be a great aid as you try and narrow down your focus.
The first step in narrowing down your list is to go through and highlight the terms that most closely target the
subject and theme of your web site. These are the terms you want to hold on to. Kill all words that are not
relevant to your site or that you don't have sufficient content to support (unless you're willing to write some).
You can't optimize for words that you don't have content for. Create a mix of both broad and targeted keywords.
You'll need both to rank well. Broad terms are important because they describe what your web site does; however,
they won't increase the level of qualified traffic coming into your site.
Targeted terms are often easier to rank for and help bring qualified traffic. They also make you a subject matter
expert to the search engines, since the targeted terms strengthen the theme created with the broader phrases.
Broad search terms may bring you the higher levels of traffic, but it's targeted, buying-oriented terms like these
that will maximize conversions.
Phase 4 – Plan your attack
So you made your list of about 10-20 highly focused keywords, now what do you do with them? You prepare them for
launch! Chances are, if you did your keyword research right, at least some of the words on your list already appear
in your site content, but some of them may not. Start thinking about how many pages you'll need to create to support
these new words, and how and where your keyword phrases will be used.
We typically recommend only going after three or four related keywords per page (five if you can balance them
properly). Any more than that and you run the risk of diluting your page to the point where you rank for nothing.
Make sure to naturally work the keywords into your content and avoid over-repetition that may be interpreted as
spamming. Your content should never sound forced.
Your on-page content isn't the only place where you can insert keywords. Keywords should also be used in several
other elements on your site:
- Title Tag
- Meta Description Tags
- Meta Keywords Tag
- Headings
- Alt text
- Anchor Text/ Navigational Links
You've spent a lot of time molding your keywords; make sure you use them in all the appropriate fields to get the
maximum benefit.
Phase 5 - Rinse, Wash, Repeat
Congratulations. Your initial keyword research process is behind you. You've created your list, checked it twice,
made friends with the keyword research tools and are now off to go plan your attack. You're done, right?
Unfortunately, no. As your customer's and your site's needs change over time, so will your keywords. It's important
to keep monitoring your keywords and make tweaks as necessary. Doing so will allow you to stay ahead of your
competition and keep moving forward.
