Keyword Research

The first step in the SEO process

Search Engine Optimization is a process whereby a specific website, and specific pages, are best positioned to capitalize on search engine traffic. SEO, these days, is a time consuming and labor intensive process that takes time to bear fruit.

These SEO articles are written to let you know a bit about the process, what you might expect when hiring a professional and to give you detailed direction if you intend to do it yourself.

Keyword research is the process by which you determine specific phrases that will deliver the most traffic likely to capitalize on your product or services. Many site owners use a shotgun effect and target phrases that they couldn't immediately compete for or capitalize on.

By looking at the products and services you can deliver profitably, and have developed content for, it becomes a matter of targeting phrases for which you have the greatest likelihood of delivering targeted traffic in the short term while they build toward your more competitive terms in the long run.

Getting Organized early will save you a great deal of time as the keyword research process progresses. Before you start I recommend opening up a spread sheet so you can add, amend information as you come to it. Have the first column as the term, and then list toolname1 volumetoolname1 ppctoolname1 competitiontoolname1, etc. In another words, have a space where you can record data for a term from the different tools.

Each of the tools will give you different information, and there is no shortage of it. By getting things organized early you'll save yourself a great deal of time as things progress.

Keyword Tools are essential in determining and prioritizing the terms that make the most sense for your business both in the short and long term.. Though no keyword tools are without error, and there is a great deal of judgment involved, there are invaluable at determining a rough search volume and the relative competitiveness of the term.

We recommend the following tools in defining and prioritizing your keyword phrases.

Google's Adword Tool will give you very good suggestions on keyword phrases, give you the rough search volume locally and globally as well as a rough advertising competitiveness metric.

Ideally the terms would be of high volume and low competitiveness. It's reasonable to assume that the higher advertising rate would drive more competitors to the term but there are some niches where it isn't so.

In any event, record what you see on the spread sheet and it'll come together naturally.

Wordtracker Keyword Suggestions will give you more good suggestions on keyword phrases and another metric on the approximate search volume.

Start by entering general terms for your site and after you've recorded any new terms that you've located and their search volume, click on specific phrases for a list generated from that phrase.

Keyword Discovery is another useful tool in refining your keywords and giving you new ideas. The premise is the same as the Wordtracker suggestion tool and just gives you one more resource which should, in the end, provide for more reliable data.

Prioritizing Your Terms is not an exact science and the more time you spend with the process the better you'll get. You'll want to group them according to competitiveness, and then the ones that work together. Most times it's best to include your most competitive phrases in conjunction with other terms targeted at the next level.

Using the term widgets for example, it may be your most prized keyword but one that you wouldn't expect to immediately compete for. Targeting Tampa Bay blue widgets may be something you'd target that would bring in traffic in the short term and work toward the specialized widgets and widgets phrases in the long term.