The first step in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and internet marketing should always be keyword research to select the keywords and keyword phrases you will be using in your campaign. You must not just select any keywords, but the best ones that you can use. These will be the keywords that drives visitors and converts them into buyers. This sounds easy right? In order to select the best keywords, you will need to select your keywords based on four factors: search volume, competition, relevancy, and buyer strength.
You can do keyword research with a couple of tools available online. Some of these tools have a subscription and some are free such as the popular Google Keywords Tool. These tools can give you hundreds of phrases along with their search volume and the number of competing website pages that are using them. Once you have these results, you can select your keywords and phrases based on the four factors explained above.
Select keywords based on four factors
Search volume: Keyword phrases with a higher search volume will have more potential to create a steady stream of traffic to your website. Always choose keywords that are relevant. Create a network of low volume phrases that are highly relevant as these can create more traffic to your website and these will most likely convert more.
Competition: This is really much more than the number of competing pages for a given keyword or keyword phrase. This is the strength of the overall competitors that have a page one ranking already on the search engine result pages. Look at other factors when doing research regarding the competitors such as the number of backlinks, the domain age, and the number of indexed pages for the selected competitors.
Relevancy: Always make sure that your website will appeal to your targeted market. Select keywords and phrases that are highly relevant to your market and niche. If someone typed in your targeted keyword phrase on the search engines, will they want to buy from you what you are offering?
Buyer strength: These are the keyword phrase that are more specific and show an intent to take an action on your website. These are quite different than information seeking keyword phrases. Buyer keyword phrases have more words (long tail keywords) and they are usually more specific and will sometimes include the city you are targeting and other local terms.
Select the best keywords should always be the first step in your SEO strategy. Do you need help with your keywords strategy? Contact us to help you.
