Good SEO Begins with Good Keyword Research
Keyword research is one of the most important, valuable, and high return activities you can perform, but there’s more to it than just picking words – you need to pick the “right” words.
You start with understanding your audience. Who are they, what are their problems, what “terms” do they use and where do they hang out? Skip this step (or get it wrong) and you might be ranking for the wrong keywords. Understanding who your audience is will make it easier to target them. It’s not always about getting traffic to your website, it’s about getting the “right” traffic.
Keyword research will help you produce the products, services, and content that your audience is actively searching for, help you identify changing market conditions and predict shifts in demand.
Four Things Keyword Research Will Help You Understand
1 – It’s About Getting the Right Visitors
There’s more to keyword research than finding search terms that generate lots of traffic. It’s about you connecting with your audience and ranking for the right keywords that convert traffic to customers.
By doing a bit of detective work not only will you learn which terms and phrases to target, you will learn more about your customers. The value of this research cannot be overstated – keyword research will help you predict shifts in demand, respond to changing markets, and produce the products, services, and content that your audience is actively searching for.
Customer Terminology (Keywords)
Finding the terms your customers use when searching for information about products and services is important information. Some customers might use proper names, while others are looking for results or use descriptive terms. All of these are important variables because each person will approach their search differently depending on their needs.
Example:
Is this class about SEO or search engine optimization? Would you call it internet marketing, online marketing, or inbound marketing? What about website optimization or website marketing?
As you can see, those terms could be used interchangeably by the average searcher. Without keyword research and discovery you could miss out on significant traffic (and customers).
By knowing the terms your customers use, you are able to write content that speaks directly to them and ensures that the content you develop is relevant to their needs.
2 – It Begins with Words Typed in a Box!
Keyword research will give you insights on what your customers desire. This type of information will help you develop better navigation elements to get your visitors to the information they want quicker or create compelling “calls to action” allowing you to get more benefit from your traffic.
Once you have a thorough understanding of your customer – it’s time to check the numbers. Search volume numbers won’t be exact, but they are a good indicator of what traffic to expect. Dig through your product/service categories and analyze how searches are made.
Using the previous example for SEO, keyword research would show that “search engine optimization” receives 16,382 searches and “SEO” receives 79,533 searches.
Term – Searches – Competition – IATT – KEI
search engine optimization – 16,382 – 41 – 243,000 – 57.7
seo – 79,533 – 52 – 759,000 – 59.5
internet marketing – 605,297 – 35 – 117,000 – 74.9
online marketing – 12,358 – 31 – 69,100 – 61.7
inbound marketing – 0 – 18 – 5,620 – 0
website optimization – 0 – 18 – 5,300 – 0
website marketing – 0 – 22 – 13,000 – 0
- Searches – the number of times that the keyword has been searched for out of a total of over 3.4 Billion searches.
- Competition – based on the number of pages directly optimized for each keyword. The higher the number, the more competition exists. Look for keywords with higher search volume and lower competition.
- IAAT – stands for “In Anchor and Title.” This represents how many pages the keyword appears in both the title tag and the anchor text of a backlink. These are two of the most important metrics that search engines use to determine which sites should come to the top of the results page.
- KEI – stands for “Keyword Effectiveness Index.” Compares the number of times a keyword has been searched for with competition (the number of pages that contain the exact keyword phrase within at least one of its incoming links (known as the allinanchor). KEI will go higher as keyword popularity increases and KEI will go down when there is more competition for a keyword.
Both words may be great keywords, but by sheer search volume alone, you can see that SEO receives a lot more traffic.
Keyword Popularity
Do specific keywords matter to your audience? They might. By only targeting [search engine optimization] you are, again, missing out on large potential audience. Keyword research not only identifies customer desires, it can help define your marketing plan by giving customers the information that is most relevant in making their purchasing decisions.
Keyword ROI
Do you know how much a keyword is worth to you? Let’s say you own an online widget store, do you make more sales from visitors searching for “red” widgets or “blue” widgets? To determine the value of a keyword, analyze your search data, make some assumptions, test, and repeat. SEO is one of the highest returns on investment marketing expenses, but measuring success is still critical to the process.
3 – Assessing Your Competition and Keyword Difficulty
It takes more than just knowing the right keywords to be successful – you need to know how much work it will take to achieve top rankings too. By understanding the competitive nature of any particular keyword, you can make a realistic decision if you have the means (energy, ability and finances) to get the results you want and in what amount of time.
Keyword Competition
When determining if a keyword is viable for your campaign you need to analyze your competition. Don’t just look at the number of competitors, you also need to determine how strong they are.
The stronger and more authoritative your competition is, the more difficult it will be for you to achieve results. Sometimes it’s a better business decision to pass on a keyword and focus on something more attainable. This strategy will allow you to start getting top rankings and traffic more quickly. Once you’ve built up your own authority, then focus on the tougher keyword choices.
Understanding Long Tail Keywords
Targeting keywords with 5,000 searches per day would be great, but in reality, these types of popular searches account for 30% or less of the total searches performed. The remaining 70% are comprised of “long tail” searches.
Long tail searches are very targeted search queries that contain 3 or more words. They often contains a generic ‘head’ term (1 or 2 words in length), followed by a modifier.
Example:
Head term: las vegas
Long tail keywords: las vegas hotels, las vegas budget hotels, las vegas budget hotel deals, las vegas budget hotel deals new years eve
We go after long tail keywords because:
- They are the most popular type of search.
- The offer better/higher converting traffic.
- They have less competition.
- They help you remain competitive.
- They help you rank for very competitive/difficult keywords.
Long tail keywords often convert better because they catch people later in the buying/conversion cycle. A person searching for “las vegas” is probably browsing, and not ready to buy, but a person searching for “las vegas budget hotel deals new years eve” probably has their credit out and ready to buy.
By targeting easier keywords, you build up your credibility and get the sales you need to survive. As you grow your website, you become more authoritative and can slowly begin going after the more difficult to achieve keywords.
This strategy also gives you the opportunity to test various on-page sales elements, keywords, and designs to see which produces a better return. Failing at this level will not produce a loss (compared to ranking for the 5,000 searches per day keyword) and successful tests will continue to help you increase conversion percentages.
READ: Cory Eridon, with inbound marketing software provider HubSpot, offers a great article on the benefits and use of long tail keywords: The Ultimate Guide for Mastering Long Tail Search.
Search for Yourself
One of the easiest and fastest ways to assess your competition level for any given keyword is to search for the phrase yourself. What websites are already ranking? How much authority do they have? Are there search advertisements running along the top and right sidebar? Multiple advertisers competing for clicks could mean a high converting keyword.
Testing for Competitive Keywords
Even if your website isn’t ranking for a competitive keyword, you can still compile research…
- Setup a campaign for the keyword using Google AdWords and/or Bing Ads and buy test traffic.
- Choose “exact match” for the test.
- Send traffic to a relevant page on your website.
- Track impressions and conversion rates over the course of at least 200-300 clicks.
Using the data collected, determine the exact value of each keyword.
Example:
If your test ad generated 5,000 impressions, of which 100 visitors have come to your site and 3 have converted for total profit (not revenue!) of $300, then a single visitor for that keyword is worth $3 to your business. Those 5,000 impressions in 24 hours could generate a click-through rate of between 18-36% with a #1 ranking, which would mean 900-1800 visits per day, at $3 each, or between 1-2 million dollars per year. No wonder search marketing is so popular!
100 visitors / 5000 impressions = 2% click-through-rate
3 sales / 100 visitors = 3% conversion
$300 profit / 100 visitors = $3.00/each
5000 impression @ 18% conversion = 900 visitors x $3/each = $2,700/day x 365 = $985,500.00
4 – User Questions – What Do They Want to Know?
By analyzing your search data for terms like: what, where, when, why, and how – you can find out the questions that are on your customers’ minds, giving you an opportunity to create great content.
By providing answers to your target audiences’ most common questions, you can really distinguish yourself as the “authority” in your niche. Yes, this is the same authority needed to get rankings on difficult and competitive keywords.
Answering these questions can also help you optimize your sales processes, determine what content is valuable, and help you reduce unnecessary customer service calls.
Putting it Together
Keyword research is an important first step in any marketing campaign. By learning the insights that drive customers, you can build a website that engages customers and moves them through the conversion process armed with the information they need to make a smart purchase.
Where to Begin
As you read through the materials, look over the tools, and develop an idea of what you want to achieve – where do you start?
The following articles offer solid advice that you can build upon. By reading, researching and applying what you learn, identifying keyword terms and phrases will soon become easier.
READ: Good keyword research is a time consuming task – it’s no wonder you don’t know where to start. This is your opportunity to dig into market research and identify exactly what your audience wants – don’t be tempted to rush through it. Tom Schmitz offers some great research tips in: How to Take your Keyword Research to a Higher Level.
READ: Facing the task of revamping an established website can be a problem… Outdated content and poor navigation have dropped site rankings and conversions. The best choice is to turn to the basics (keyword research and content creation) – focus on the customer. George Aspland offers solid advice in his article: Back to Basics – Getting Started with Keyword Research & Content Development.
READ: If you have no idea where to start or you’re looking for a solid content marketing strategy check out Copyblogger. They offer a variety of articles, ebooks, seminars, webinars, and forums that will give you plenty of suggestions. I recommend you start with these two freebies: Keyword Research: A Real World Guide and Content Marketing Research: The Crucial First Step.
READ: Still confused on how keyword research plays a role in creating website content? This article, Decoding Keywords To Forecast Marketing Opportunities, by Thomas Stern posted in Search Engine Land will help you understand the importance of understanding (and identifying) keyword opportunities. By utilizing keywords targeted to the way your audience searches and behaves online, you can increase the value of your content and expand your online reach.