Keyword Research & Suggestion Tips

Background Video

Section Modules

This spreadsheet and the video in the site architecture and internal linking module show how to align keywords with URLs.

What are Keywords?

Keywords are phrases under which you would want your website to be found in search engines. Keywords are typically two-to-five-word phrases you expect people to search for to find your website.

Common Keyword Problems

There are a few common problems with keyword selection:

  • Some people use their internal corporate catch phrases versus focusing on what people actually search for.
  • Sometimes words have a more commonly used different meaning that elevates the estimated traffic and competition level without actually bringing in any more sales. This especially holds true for shortened words (examples: pics, cams).
  • Some people use really generic words that are not very relevant and are extremely competitive. Optimizing my site for search engine would be a good example of this. Lots of competition to attain traffic disinterested in my services.

Internal-Speak

Oftentimes, corporate climates force people to refer to things using special phrases. Keywords are not about what you call your stuff. Keywords are what Joe average surfer (or your prospective site visitors) may type in a search box.

A major cell phone company refuses to use the terms cellular phone or cell phone on their site because, in their words, “We don’t just sell analog phones, we sell digital phones as well. ‘Cellular’ is old technology.” In engineering-speak, ‛cellular phone’ is a phone that uses ‘cell towers’ to move voice back and forth via analog frequencies. They didn’t seem to understand that most customers refer to their mobile phone as a ‘cell phone’ or ‘cellular phone,’ and they don’t give a rip about the technology that makes the phone work.

Make sure you research how customers search. Do not rely on what the company prefers to call things.

Focusing a Keyword

If someone tells you to target a broad word like free, they are out of their minds. That single word is too general and has too much competition. I am not saying that free should not be on your page; it is a compelling offer on many of mine. I am saying that keywords should define the product or idea. Free alone just does not get this done.

Keyword Phrases

If free isn’t a keyword, then what is? Keywords are typically two-to-five-word phrases you expect people to search for to find your website. What would you expect people to type in the browser to find your site? If you were looking for your product, what would you type? What types of problems does your product or service solve? Those answers are likely good keyword phrases.

Keyword Value vs Length

Keyword Length

A longer search phrase is typically associated with better targeting and increased consumer desire. A common saying is shorter keyword are shoppers and longer keyword are buyers.

As you add various relevant descriptive copy to pages, you are more likely to appear in search results similar to your keywords that do not exactly match your more generic root-term keywords. Most good keyword phrases are generally two to five words.

The Tail of Search

Many people feel the need to rank for a broad generic term and optimize exclusively for that term. The problem with this is that around half of all search queries are unique each day (see slide 31 on this PDF). On May 16th, 2007 Udi Manber said that 20 to 25% of the queries Google sees are queries they had never seen before.

If you were trying to rank well for used books you should cater to a variety of terms around that idea such as: used book store, buy used books, used book search, etc. By writing naturally and answering questions, you will also include many common terms and phrases people search for.

In late 2006 AOL search revealed over 20 million search queries. While AOL has a consumer oriented bias, the following is a classification of search queries based on manual categorization by scientists.

The fact that they used 20 general categories, and yet 15.69% of the searches ended up in the others category, shows how broad search is.

Keyword Value Pyramid

One of the most fatal flaws of many SEO campaigns is that people think they need to rank well for one term or a few generic terms. Generic terms may occasionally convert, but most strong-converting search terms are specific.

If you read SEO forums you often hear many posts about something like a San Diego real estate agent no longer ranking for a generic term such as real estate. Since the term is too generic for most of his target market (and his service would not be fitting for most people searching for that term), it makes sense that search engines would not want to show his site in those search results. As search continues to evolve, it will get better at filtering out untargeted or inappropriate sites.

Targeting generic terms outside of your area means that you need to use aggressive techniques to try to rank. There are several problems that can go along with being too aggressive:

  • Targeting exceptionally generic terms may not add much value, since the leads are not strongly qualified. Paying extra to rank for more generic terms may not be a cost that is justified unless you can resell those leads at a profit.
  • Being exceptionally aggressive raises your risk profile and makes your site more likely to fluctuate in rankings when new search algorithms are rolled out.
  • Some of the best value is at the bottom of the keyword pyramid. If you spend too much time focused too broadly on the top you may miss some of the exceptional value on the bottom.

Here is a search value pyramid:

As you can see from the image, the more we target our specific market, the greater value we can extract from our sites. I am not suggesting always trying to use free online Texas holdem software download over and over again, but by scattering those various words (and related words) throughout your copy, you may be able to rank for many related phrases.

Where On the Pyramid Do I Start?

Usually, most sites are designed from the top down, starting with a generic concept and working their way down through specific topics. Another way to look at the pyramid concept is to look at where the top of your pyramid should start. Some people will always start at the top with a term like travel, but in doing that they have to work a long way down to get to the specific categories. If you are not well-funded, that may be impractical.

If you start your pyramid with more specific terms at the top, your site will have a stronger tighter theme, and it will be easier for you to dominate your niche market. As your link popularity spreads from the home page, it does not have to go far to reach Honolulu beach wedding packages if your site is about Hawaii weddings or Honolulu.

I am not suggesting that most webmasters should make hundreds of 3--5 page websites, but what I am saying is that it is better to have 100 useful pages about Jamaica than to have 1,000 lower-quality pages about travel in general.

You have to be able to evaluate how competitive your market is, what resources you have available, and whether you can compete in that market. A large reason many websites fail is that they are too broad or unfocused. If the top sites in your industry are Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotels.com, and other well-known properties, you need to have a large budget, create something fundamentally innovative, or look for a better niche opportunity in which you can dominate.

WebmasterWorld has a useful theming thread here which describes the keyword pyramid concept quite well.

Finding Keywords

There are many different ways to find keywords for your website. Some good keyword sources are:

  • Words people would search for to find your products and services, via:
  • Mind map problems your prospective customers may be trying to solve with your product or service (even if they do not know you exist)
  • Competitive research
    • Competitive research tools
    • Keyword tags on competitors’ websites
    • Visible page copy on competitors’ websites
    • Keywords competitors bid on
  • Related search suggestions on large search engines:
  • Related term suggestions at smaller engines such as Gigablast, Vivisimo, Become.com, and Snap
  • Keyword groupings via tools such as Google Sets.
  • Trend related tools
  • News topics and topics discussed on forums and blogs.
  • Lexical FreeNet: helps find related terms and ideas using a large database of related terms (this is well beyond the scope of needs for most people trying to do SEO)
  • Tag Cloud: Tag Cloud is a free folksonomy tool showing related terms. If your product name or brand are related to other common terms in your market, then you are doing a good job working your brand into the semantic language. For example, when I search Yahoo! for seo book, sometimes they show a see also result for seo book aaron. Sometimes Yahoo! recommends seo book when I search for seo.

Keyword Selection Tips

The goal of keywords is to choose terms that will bring well-targeted traffic to your website. Each page on your site can be targeted for a few different keyword phrases. Typically I like to just do about one to two primary phrases and, at most, two to three secondary phrases. Many secondary phrases simply consist of a primary keyword + a related keyword modifier.

Quintura keyword clouds do a good job of displaying relevant keyword modifiers:

I also created a XLS spreadsheet of common keyword modifiers.

Keyword Selection is a Balancing Act

You want the words to be descriptive enough for you to qualify the person and describe your product. You also want the search term to be general enough to be something that is frequently searched for. The definition of “frequently” changes depending on industry and the value of a lead, but common sense should help guide you in finding what keywords are the right ones to target. Sales are far more important than just the quantity of traffic you get. The power of keywords is in their precise targeting.

Sure you can list well for a really long search term that is present only on your site, but you want it to be something your prospects are searching for. On the flip side, it is usually hard to list for a single word such as outsourcing. Selecting keywords is a balancing act. Most good keywords are two to five words long.

Use your home page to target a primary keyword and use the other pages to target other keyword phrases. The keyword phrases targeted on each page should also be terms that describe the contents of that page and terms that are likely to yield conversions.

Overlapping Keyword Phrases

It makes sense to optimize the same page for keyword phrases that share some of the same words. A page that ranks well for search engine marketing should easily be able to rank well for professional search engine marketing or search engine marketing services.

Only Use a Few Keyword Phrases per Page

A note of caution--you cannot optimize a page for 20 different keywords. As you add more keywords to the mix, you lessen the focus of the page. The page can start to sound robot-created if you optimize for too many terms. Remember that converting eyeballs is what matters. People are not likely to link to or buy from a page that reads like rubbish. Having said that, a page that is well optimized for one term can still bring in traffic from hundreds of closely related keywords, likeso:

Plural Keyword Versions

Some search engines use stemming, but usually the search results for singular and plural search phrases are at least slightly different. In fact, Google returns different search results for searches with low value stop words in the search queries. While it is recommended that you optimize for common versions of your popular keywords, you should occasionally use other versions of those words throughout your copy.

Capitalized Keywords

Most major search engines are not case sensitive. Cars is typically treated the same way as cars.

Hyphenated Keywords, Acronyms, & Apostrophes

Most search engines treat hyphens and apostrophes as a space. E-mail is seen as being slightly different than email. If a word is split by a hyphen or apostrophe then you should check to see which version is used more frequently and optimize for whatever versions are commonly searched upon.

Some acronyms are treated as being the same as the keyword they represent. In other cases they are treated as similar words or entirely different words. When debating how to target a keyword look at the search results for the various versions to look at how closely they are aligned and how strong the competing sites are.

If one version of a term is more commonly searched for but is hyper-competitive, it may make sense to optimize for the less competitive term first, and then go after the more competitive version as your site gains authority. If one version is popular amongst industry insiders but another version is more popular amongst customers then it makes sense to target the version customers use. If you are unsure of which term is better to target try buying PPC ads for both and track which one converts better.

Localized Keyword Research

People use different terminology in different countries. In the U.S., we want taxi cabs. In London, they look for a car hire. Make sure that if you are not from the country of your target market, you know what words are commonly used to describe the products or services you are promoting there. It is important that your copy sounds local when targeting local markets.

Frequently Asked Questions

A great way to find targeted prospects is to find what ideas and concepts are important to them in the buying cycle.

  • Why do they buy?
  • Why did they choose you?
  • What are common questions they may have during the buying cycle?

You can create a page focused around each of the common buying questions to show up in the search results when people are about to buy and are focused on those issues. Answer the questions as best you can and then place your ads or call to action near the answer.

Ignoring Keyword Research? When to

Low Search Value Pages

Not every page needs optimized for keywords. Some may be optimized more for client usability or linkability, whereas others may be included on the site just because they are expected to be there. Your about page or privacy policy page do not need optimized.

For some pages, like customer support pages, it makes sense to optimize them for the problems people might have with your products, but you want to make sure that in the attempts to optimize the pages you do not hurt the readability or outrank your sales copy.

Writing for Emotion & Spreading Ideas

If you can spread a great idea that other people will link to and reference, then that is a good thing. Sometimes you can get keywords in great article headlines, but if making the title keyword rich means that few people will link to it, then I suggest choosing to go with the story that spreads over the story that ranks. You could always go back and change the title later after the story spreads.

Low Value Customers

Some keyword modifiers like discount, cheap, and free drive a lot of traffic. Those words might be a viable strategy if you are selling ad space, but if you sell an expensive heavy commodity you do not want to target cheap customers. They will waste your time, steal your product, then reverse charge their credit card after they have your product in hand. You are typically better off spending that time targeting affluent repeat customers who value quality and will pay a premium for their relationship with you.

If you have other keywords that bring in irrelevant prospects you may want to establish a relationship with a firm that is willing to buy those leads. If that proves ineffective you can try to change your page copy to try to lower your ranking for those keywords. If all else fails you can buy a few links for top ranked competing sites to help them outrank you.

Need Help with Keyword Selection?

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by Aaron Wall

December 3, 2007