Introduction to Keyword Research

The strategic placement of the correct keywords into a website is arguably one of the most influential tasks an SEO can do to influence search engine rankings. The last article, titled Basic Page Title, Meta Description & Meta Keywords Structuring Rules, briefly discusses the strategic placement of keywords, however, knowing how and where to place keywords is only half the battle. This weeks article will provide a few tips and tricks on how to find the right keywords through research and tools like the Google Keywords Tool.

Using Google Keywords Tool:

There are a lot of useful keyword research tools available on the Internet that are free to use, but as of recently, good research can be done through Google AdWords’ Keyword Tool alone.

The tool has two tabs: “Keyword Variations” and “Site Related Keywords.” The former allows the user to find synonyms to keywords and phrases, while the later searches for keywords likely to be related to a Web page or number of pages.

Below is a simple step by step guide on how to find good keywords to target…

• Perform a query in Google on a phrase or two that most closely relates to the website’s offerings, and then find the top five ranking sites. There will be some sites in the results that rank for the query but are not direct competitors of it. Those sites should not be included. Also, there will be sites that rank and are related but will also not qualify as competitors because they provide a localized service in a geographically distant location.
• The top five ranking sites found can be viewed as top competitors. Enter their URL’s into the keywords tool under site-related keywords. This should provide a list of keywords targeted by top ranking competitors. Some of these phrases or words will be broad while others are specific, but both are useful. Also, make sure the “Include other pages on my site linked from this URL” option is selected.
• Collect the keywords and phrases that are the most relevant which can be categorized into five main categories: those that describe the industry in general, those that describe the particular service(s) provided, those that describe the brands of products sold, those that describe a particular category of products offered and those that describe the specific products themselves.
• This process will often yield many results of relevant and suitable keywords for the website, however not all keywords are suitable for every page. For example, keywords relating to the industry in general, services offered, brand names and geographical location of the site (if services are geographically specific) will be best suited for placement on the homepage, whereas category and product specific keywords are useful for category and product pages.
• If more keywords relating to a particular subject is needed, then perform a keyword variations search for more useful keywords. In addition, if there are products and services offered by the website but not the competitors’ websites or if there are any aspects of the business that would make it stand out and unique, those related keywords should also be targeted.

There are many different ways to perform keyword research and different tools that can be factored in when deciding what phrases would be more suitable, but it will not be a very good use of time. The process described above will produce good enough results, for most campaigns, in a short amount of time. It’s better to find likely candidates quickly, test them and make changes later since nothing can be known to work for sure until it’s been tried.

After the site is built with the keywords in place, owners should monitor certain factors such as bounce rate, conversion rate, page views per visit, number of unique visitors, what keywords are getting the most clicks etc. as reported by Google Analytics. I will be discussing more about Google Analytics in next week’s article.