Keyword Research

Keyword research is a crucial part of SEO, as without it there’s every chance that you’ll be targeting the wrong keywords, wasting time and money as a result.

The steps to keyword research are as follows:

  1. List keyword sources, these include your existing website, Google Webmaster Tools, analytics data, Google trends, PPC campaigns (yours and your competitors’) sales data, product or service offerings, competitors’ marketing material and industry publications, to name a few.
  2. Create an initial keyword list including common variations on stem terms and vet manually for relevance
  3. Analyse keywords including assessing their regional search volume, PPC bid prices, perceived value (in client’s eyes) current rankings and the strength of the competition to identify both quick wins and the optimal long term strategy
  4. Review keyword research recommendations with the client to ensure that they are happy with the strategy

Volume vs Conversion rate

There’s more to keyword research than simply picking the keyword with the highest search volume. Some keywords convert better than others and the most popular are often short non-speciifc phrases that will be far harder to rank for than longer more descriptive terms.