Keyword Research for Improved SEO
I recently spoke with Jay Brock, a Natural Search Consultant at Apogee Search, about SEO keyword research. Jay provided insight into the importance of SEO keyword research, strategies for developing keyword lists, and highlighted tools to help evaluate keyword success.
Quality SEO keyword research should be the foundation for all SEO efforts. Since SEO can take six to nine months to show significant results, selecting effective keywords is crucial. Keyword research helps prevent your company from investing time and money in poorly developed tactics. Finding terms that will bring significant and relevant traffic is essential to your SEO campaign and overall profitability.
The keyword list development should be a collaborative effort. Jay suggests beginning with a brainstorm. When brainstorming, consider your target audience and how they search for you. Also, analyze paid search data for successes, and apply information learned from paid search campaigns to your natural search efforts. You should also take into account seasonality of products or services. And finally, include branded terms in your keyword list, because visibility is important on these terms too.
Once you have defined a list of keywords, there are three data points that will help you determine the value and competitiveness of your terms. They are as follows:
1. Monthly search volume can be found using various tools. The most widely used is Google AdWords. This free tool provides 12-month search volume, and month-by-month search volume which allows you to easily look at seasonality. SEO Book also provides a keyword tool, though it is more in depth and not quite as user-friendly as the Google Adwords keyword research tool.
2. For sites with keyword phrases in the title tags, perform a Google search using “allintitle” as one word, followed by a colon, and the keyword phrase, for example — allintitle:books. The results will show the total number of sites that compete using that keyword phrase in their title tags.
3. For sites with keyword phrases in the anchor text, perform a Google search using “allinanchor” as one world, colon, and the keyword phrase (example — allinanchor:books). You will see the number of competing websites with links pointing back to their sites using a specific keyword phrase.
With these three tips you can identify terms with a high search volume and low allintitle and allinanchor competition. These terms can drive considerable traffic with the least amount of competitors for keyword phrases.
Once your keyword list is defined you must decide which pages are most relevant to your keyword phrases. Select pages that already use the phrases in the content or are dedicated to a specific topic. On-page relevance is important for search engine rankings.
Remember to trust your instincts. Utilize tools and data, and also use your industry knowledge and consumer insights to define your keyword list.
