Search Engine Optimisation Process Part 2: Keyword Analysis Research

The Importance of Keyword Analysis cannot be undervalued, choosing the right keywords is extremely important and can be the difference between success and failure on the internet.  This chapter will explain where and how keywords can be researched, where keywords are used and how to document your data.  This will help prepare for the next chapter SEO Web Design which focuses on site structure for search engines and users.

What are Keywords? – Keyword Selection

Choosing the wrong keywords can mean you target the wrong groups; customers will not see you, Search Engines ignore you, Social Media will be more of a challenge as your topics may not get retweeted (on Twitter) or bookmarked (on Digg or Delicious). Keywords are the foundation to your Business or Blog online and can be found in :

• Website Content visible to a visitor – main text, links, description tags, url descriptions .
• Web Content for Search Engines – meta tags, heading, title, description tags, and url descriptions.
• PPC Campaigns.
• Social Media Campaigns – Video, Social Bookmarking, Twitter, Blogs etc.
• External Press releases.
• Link Building Campaigns.

Identifying the Relevant Keywords

The first part of the puzzle is to identify what keywords are relevant and which are not. Many business owners feel they know their business well enough to know what terms and search phrases customers will use to find their products.  Unfortunately this is not always correct and it pays to research. Keywords can be just one word or a phrase, a broad selection or exact targeted words and (depending on your subject)  information or buying related. There are many ways and tools out there to help:

• Ask your customers or audience you are trying to connect with face to face or over the telephone.  Try a poll or competition on your website or on Twitter.  If they are reluctant think of an incentive to get this information, it’s extremely important.
• Ask friends as they will view the site with a fresh outlook and come up with things you will not have thought of.
• Check out the competition, they will use a variety of  keywords you may not have thought of. Use the SEO X-Ray feature on the SEObook tool bar (Covered in SEO Tools – Market Research) to view the keywords of a site.
• Remember customers or visitors may not use business speak or the terms and language used inside the business or subject area when searching for products or at all.

Also in this early stage try to think about the structure of your site, usually you will have a hierarchical design with category links from the front page. I have Search Engine Optimisation as a link at the top which then leads down to other pages connected with Search Engine Optimisation.  As you may guess Search Engine Optimisation is a Keyword.  I discuss Website design structure in Part 3.

Keywords and Keyword Phrases to Look for

Traffic

There is no point focusing on words and terms with little to no traffic, you need to look at the results and decide which words are important, but also bring a steady flow of visitors.  Be aware of broad generic terms as they may be high in traffic but also high in competition (check your traffic against your competition).  You really need to research and dig down to find the words which will allow you to compete, long tail keywords can help you achieve this goal.

Long Tail Keywords

These are usually phrases that have low amounts of searches but are targeted and relevant to your website. These represent exactly what your customer requires and phrases can also be quite long.  An example could be the generic broad term “Black T-shirt”, this has lots of traffic but also lots of competition and is very general.  A long tail keyword phrase might be “Nike Air Extra Large Black T-Shirt”, this implies exactly what the searcher is looking for and is very specific e.g. a brand and product.

The Benefits of Long Tail Keywords

• Can provide high quality visitors to your website and high volumes of visitors if you have lots of phrases.
• Visitors are further down the buying process and are more inclined to purchase.
• Competition is lower for these phrases so it’s easier to rank on Organic search results.
• For pay per click advertising because the terms are more relevant this increases your quality score, making your adverts cheaper, enabling you to have more ads on the first search page and improve Click Through Rates. (CTR).

Collating Our Research Data

You should now have a selection of potential keywords which need to be written down as we begin to compile our data. A spreadsheet will be the best option Excel, OpenOffice.org or Google Docs which ever is easier. It is a good idea now with the words you have to think about the structure of your website.

A hierarchical structure works well if you start with the name of your site as one excel page and list the categories on that page.  Then create a page for each individual category and place the keywords you think are relevant under that category. These will become the page/article titles and the category name will be a link from the front page of your site.

• Copy and paste all your words in one column and open the SEOBook Keyword Selection Tool, now is a good time to think about how to group the words.
• Enter your first phrase and watch the results, depending on how much information you require create the columns in your spread sheet.
• The tool creates additional broad searches relating to your phrase and also creates links to a number of tools where you can access free data from Wordtracker, Google, Keyword Discovery, Quintura and Yahoo (use the search operators explained in Part 1 with Yahoo to gain a more relevant result) .  The first 5 columns are available to download, see the export to CSV link above the first column.
• You will need to decide which additional information is relevant to you and become familiar with each tool, you will have to click the links manually. It’s time consuming but worth completing and it’s free so for a small business on a low budget, individual or blogger it’s ideal.

The Search Engine Optimisation Process Help List – 6 Key Areas

The links below need to be followed in a series (one after the other).  Now you have your keywords we can now move onto Part 3? Get ready you will be learning the tricks to writing decent web content (web copy)  which can help drive more traffic to your site and increase conversions.  If you need any help contact me on Twitter @briancee1.  Enjoy!

These links will appear at the bottom of each page in the series

1. SEO Tools – Check your Site
2. Keyword Analysis Research
3. Web Content Writing – Web Copy
4. SEO Web Design – Search Engine and User Friendly Structure
5. Link Building – The Natural Way
6. SEO Service – Revisiting, Fixing and Optimising your site.