How to conduct Keyword Competitive Research
Keyword research is the core of any SEO campaign and it is vitally important when developing PPC programs. You should choose carefully the keywords that are most effective, because the key- words selected during the research phase will be included in your web-site copy, as well as your PPC programs, and many other types of campaigns.
To begin with, you should select valid keywords from a variety of sources, which include:
■ Your own knowledge of the product or service that you’re marketing. From your own knowledge you should be able choose at least one word that characterizes that product or service. If you’re unable to select that word, spend some time getting to know your prod- ucts and services better.
■ Your customers. Your customers will be able to tell you what keywords they think of or use when searching for your product or service. Customers can be your best source for valid and relevant keywords, because you’re trying to reach people just like them.
■ Competitors’ web sites. Check your competitors’ web sites for additional keywords that you may not have considered during your initial brainstorming session. Obviously, if your competitors are using these keywords, there will be some competition for them, but better to have the competition than to be left outside the arena while the games are taking place.
CROSS-REF
Remember checking out competitors’ web sites back in Chapter 4? The same method of viewing the source code for those sites is the method that you would use here to check for keywords on your competitors’ sites. If you need a reminder, flip back now to review the section on keyword density.
Keyword suggestion tools
One tool that you should use when developing your keyword list is a keyword suggestion tool. Keyword suggestion tools are just that, tools that provide a list of suggested keywords based on a base word that you enter into the search tool. Some of the words returned may not have occurred to you when you were brainstorming keywords and talking to your customers about the words they would use. In addition, keyword suggestion tools provide some of the information that you’ll need to determine how much competition there is for the keywords and phrases you’re considering using.
In the past, measuring the competition for your search terms was done by performing a search for each keyword or phrase using one search engine at a time. When the SERPS were returned, you could see how many times that keyword or phrase turned up. It was a tedious and ineffective method of keyword research. Today, keyword suggestion tools speed the competitive research process.
Here’s how it works: first, you input your proposed keywords into a keyword suggestion tool, and it examines a database that contains millions of instances of keyword usage. Using these tools, you can quickly learn how many users are conducting daily searches for that term, how many of those searches resulted in an actual visit, and what related search terms were used.
Many keyword suggestion tools are available on the Web. Some of the top tools, which you’ll hear about most often, include:
■ Overture Keyword Selector Tool: Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool, shown in Figure 5-2, shows you how many searches have been conducted over a given month for a keyword or phrase related to the search term you entered into the Selector Tool. You can find the Overture Keyword Selector Tool at this URL: http://inventory.overture.com/d/ searchinventory/suggestion/
■ Wordtracker: Wordtracker allows you to search for terms in the database of terms col- lected. This program tells you how often a keyword or phrase was searched for and how many competing sites use the keywords. In addition, like Overture, the list of keywords and phrases returned may include words or phrases that you haven’t considered using. Additionally, Wordtracker offers a top 1,000 report that lists the most frequently searched- for terms and a Competition Search option that helps you determine the competitiveness of each phrase. This report is useful for figuring out how difficult it will be to reach a spe- cific rank for any given term. You may also find keywords on this list that have low com- petition rates, but high relevancy. For example, Figure 5-3 shows some of the results for a Wordtracker search for the term “business technology writer.” As you can see in the figure, the term “writing business plan emerging technology” has very little competition. Therefore, if you have a site that includes information about writing business plans for emerging tech- nology business, this keyphrase might be a good choice because there is little competition, but it can be a highly effective phrase. A free version of Wordtracker is available at
http:// freekeywords.wordtracker.com/.
■ Trellian Keyword Discovery Tool: The Trellian tool is a subscription tool (about $50 per month) that allows users to ascertain the market share value for a given search term, see how many users search for it daily, identify common spellings and misspellings, and dis- cover which terms are impacted by seasonal trends. Figure 5-4 shows the some of the results that are returned with a Tellian search for “Sydney Hotel.” As you can see in the fig- ure, each keyword or phrase returned includes information about the number of searches for the word in addition to having capability to analyze each word or phrase further.
■ Google AdWords Keyword Tool: Google’s Keyword Tool provides suggestions for addi- tional words that you may not have considered. In the results shown in Figure 5-5 (again using the term “business technology writer”), there are some graphs related to the number of times the words are searched for and to the competition that you might face if you select that word. However, there are no actual numbers, so your decisions about competition will include a high element of guesswork.
What you might find unique about the Google Keyword Tool is the ability to have the tool examine your web page or even your entire web site and make suggestions for keywords and phrases that might be useful in marketing your site. The results of such a search, as illustrated in Figure 5-6, may include terms that you haven’t considered.
One thing that you should remember as you’re using any of these keyword suggestion tools is that you’re not only checking to see how competitive a keyword is, but you’re also checking to see if it’s popular, and you’re keeping your eyes open for those unexpected keywords that are not highly competitive but are completely relevant to your site.
While you’re testing potential new terms, it’s also a good idea to test any keywords that your site is already using to see which ones are effective and which are not. The keywords that are effective meaning those that result in visitors and goal conversions – -are the keywords to hang on to. Any that aren’t performing well should be replaced with new keywords.
What this means is that your keyword research is an ongoing chore. Because your site is likely to for change over time, your keywords will also change. Therefore, it’s necessary you to conduct reg- ular keyword research to see which keywords or phrases are working and which are not, as well as to add new keywords to your list.
In doing your keyword research, here are some basic guidelines you can follow to ensure that you’re conducting the most thorough research while being highly efficient:
■ Search from the point of view of your potential customers.
■ Select as many relevant keywords or phrases as possible.
■ Monitor your keywords to see which attract your target audience. Keep those that perform and replace those that do not.
■ Select keywords and phrases that aren’t the most competitive but also not the least com- petitive. These medium competitive words should yield good results without eating a ridiculous amount of your budget.
