Planning A Keyword Strategy
By Eric Lester
Keywords are the most important decisions an SEO must make when starting out. Choosing the right keywords will determine the overall SEO strategy and can make all the difference, saving both time and expense in the campaign.
The core of most Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, work is good planning. Virtually all future efforts will be based on the initial choices made about goals and strategies. Chief amongst these choices is that of keywords. The keywords chosen will determine how much of a struggle the SEO efforts will take and what kind of strategy will be used. This is why careful analysis is required in the choice of keywords. Choose poorly and the consequences in terms of time and money can be steep.
Building The List
The choice process is one of elimination. The first step is the easiest, brainstorming as many candidate keywords as possible. The hard part is taking that big list and picking out the truly worthwhile entries. When brainstorming, think in the broadest terms possible about the products, services, and industry in which the business operates. The object is to create a very broad list, as it will be more likely to contain the terms best suited to the overall SEO strategy chosen.
Process of Elimination
With the list prepared, it is time to start eliminating choices. Keep in mind the following basic SEO rules when doing this. First, any one page, including your website's homepage, can only be effectively optimized for 2-3 keywords or keyphrases. This number can be higher, but that depends on the use of fairly obscure keywords and phrases. Though not usually ideal, one should not entirely discount obscure words and phrases. They can be useful and will be touched upon later. With a 2-3 max in mind, make a short list of what is considered "ideal" in terms of the business or products being offered. One can always optimize internal pages for additional terms if the homepage cannot support all the most highly prized keywords.
Doing The Homework
Research the chosen keywords. This can be accomplished through a variety of ways. First, and most rudimentary, check them in the search engines. View the listings and get a feel for the "competition." Some keywords are more hotly contested than others, though, and this might not be apparent by a mere glance at the results. This is where some deeper analysis is warranted. Various tools exist to gauge the popularity of keywords. Most well known is, perhaps, "Wordtracker.com", a analysis tool that requires a monthly fee to use. Many marketers consider its information invaluable, though, providing a good idea of how many people are likely to be searching on a particular or keyphrase. As a general rule of thumb, the more searches, the more competitive it may be. Alternatively the Overture Selector Tool provides similar information at no charge. Both tools are also useful as suggestion tools, as they will provide a list of related searches that might provide more valuable keywords than were already chosen.
Two Strategies
The data from Wordtracker or Overture, or both, will provide an good idea how much effort will be required to appear in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for a particular or phrase. The more searches, the likely more competitive. More general searches are more common, and these can be the hardest to successfully optimize. This is where more obscure terms and phrases can be useful. Depending on the business or products being sold, some kinds of more obscure phrases can be very useful.
For instance, someone searching on "cars" could have any number of reasons for doing so. "Cars" is very popular term, and trying to optimize for it would require a great deal of time and money. Whereas someone searching for a particular type of car, or, better yet, a particular type of car in a certain area, is far more likely to be looking to buy that kind of car. There will also be far fewer people doing that search than for "cars", perhaps making
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