SEO 101: Understanding Keyword Research Basics
If you are just dipping your toes into the pool we know as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you have undoubtedly discovered that keyword research is a fundamental part of a successful campaign. In fact, it could be the single most important piece of preparation before you begin SEO. With that being said, lets take a little time and shed some light on the subject.
Importance
As you all know, search engines will take a keyword entered by a user and present websites the search engine finds the most relevant to the keyword, with the sites they deem most relevant in the top 10 (the first page of results). The goal of any SEO campaign is to have the website in question start ranking or rank higher on search engines, with the goal of finding itself in one of those highly coveted first page spots.
Choose Your Battles
Before you delve further into the metrics of a keyword, you need to come up with a raw keyword list first; keywords you feel you that would help boost an online presence and drive traffic to the website. Obviously, you need to first pick keywords that relate to the content of site, or the goods/services that the website advertises.
In a recent conversation with J. Micheal Roach, Creative Director at Missouri-based marketing firm Caledon Virtual, he noted, “at this stage, it’s helpful to take yourself out of a marketer role and back into a user role. Ask yourself ‘if I was looking for these goods or these services, what would I enter into the search bar?” For example, if you are working with a used car dealer, you might look into keywords that have to do with used cars, buying used cars, used car dealership, etc.
Whatever keywords you decide to try out, your best bet is to go after what we call “long tail keywords”. Long tail keywords are keywords that feature specific phrases, like “bay area food truck festival”. Long tail keywords are generally favored for a few reasons. For one, shorter one-word keywords, while bringing high search volumes, bring extremely high competition as well (competition meaning the number of search results that the search engine produces for that keyword). That means the ladder you must climb to reach the first page is significantly higher.
Another reason is that long tail keywords allow you to get a better idea of what the user is looking for. For example, someone searching “landscaping” could be looking for landscaping tips, landscaping news, or quite possibly the definition of landscaping. With a long tail keyword such as “landscaping services in San Francisco”, you have a clear idea that the user is looking to hire a landscaper.
Crunching Numbers
Once you have your raw list of long tail keywords, you need to get a little bit more in-depth info about the search volume and competition. Fortunately, you can find several tools online that you can plug your potential keywords into. One of the most useful tools available for this is the Google AdWords Keyword Planner. The Keyword planner allows you to tailor your research to best fit your ranking goals. For example, if you are working on a local SEO campaign, you can choose to target the specific region the business located.
The keyword tool will show you several different metrics, but the most important ones are the average monthly searches and the competition. After you plug in your raw keywords, choose the ones with the most desirable metrics (i.e. decent search volume, relatively low competition). After that you can take it a step further and plug that data into what is known as the Keyword Efficiency Index. The formula for the KEI is as follows:
Plugging the data into this formula will produce a percentage that will further tell you which keywords are ripe for the picking. Its simple: the higher the percentage, the more favorable the keyword.
There you have it! Follow these steps and you will soon have basic KW research down pat!
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