The Key to Keywords

We talk and talk about improving SEO and making sure this and that is keyword rich to help you boost the rankings. So, how do you work out what your keywords should be? It is easy enough to make a list of relevant words to your website but how do you know that these are the right words? The best place to start is with the handy keyword tools to research potential success.

Tools for Success

Google Trends

You can use this tool from Google to search for terms and see the history of search traffic for them. This can be found for locations also! Related terms are also listed as which are at the top and the ones that are rising in traffic. It would be good to aim at the rising terms and get in there early to start ranking highly! Have a look here.

Google AdWords Keyword Planner

The Keyword Planner is another tool provided by Google to find the demand and value of search terms based on Google search data. This is used for PPC ads where people see which terms are in demand and how much it would cost to rank on the first page as an ad. Definitely worth using to see where your potential keyword terms would rank and also be shown some related terms that you may not have considered using!

Got the Tools, Now the Strategy!

So you have the tools in place, how do you then make your keyword/content strategy from there? Here are some simple guides to follow to make the most out of your SEO efforts.

Be Specific to be Relevant

With search listings, it is important that the keywords and phrases are specific enough to your website but not too specific. Finding the right balance is important. Words that are too vague and generic will bring up thousands of results with lots of competition. It’s also likely that vague terms may lead to your site not being relevant to the search.

As a very basic example, your site sells wooden gifts… you use the word ‘wood’ as a keyword… the competition and relevance to your site from a search for wood will be hit and miss. You are much better focussing on keywords and phrases such as ‘personalised wooden gifts’ to be throughout your site to ensure you’re targeting the right searches.

Convert with Long-Tail Terms

Unique search terms make up 70% of all searches when totalled together as ‘The Long Tail’. These have less competition the more unique and specific they are and are much more likely to be relevant to the search result pages. Aim to target this 70% rather than trying to rank highly for generic search terms that have thousands of searches each day. The long tail terms are far more likely to lead to conversions as the relevance is higher! Someone using such a specific term also suggests that they know what they are looking for and are that bit closer to a purchase, so a good person to be noticed by!

Think Like Your Visitor

You need a basis to start with. What are the themes, leading products, latest trends and unique selling points of your website? Once you have an idea of the terms you want to be targeting, you can then take the next step to refining these in to the ‘long-tail’ search terms. Think like a customer and what they may search to reach your site.

Location, Location, Location

If your business is focussed in a particular area or two, you can focus keywords to include this. For example, if you offer a dog grooming service it is likely you only operate in a defined area. Push keywords that include area on your site such as ‘dog grooming Cardiff’ so that you list in the search results alongside your other competitors in your area.

Understand the Difficulty of Keywords

If you search the terms you are wanting to use in Google and much larger competitors are filling the top 10 spots, it is likely this may be too big of a hill to climb at an early stage in a business. It could take years and hours of effort to be able to fight the top dogs in the industry. Time is best spent investing in other terms to pick up these searches and gradually build the business to a point it can compete with those at the top for the top terms.

A good way to quickly check the worth of keywords is to search them in Google. If the page has paid ads to the side and above, this is obviously a valuable search that people are paying to rank on the first page for!

Quality over Quantity

Once you have the keywords and phrases you would like to focus on, think about the amount of time you have to devote to promoting these words and maintaining your sites position in the rankings for them. If you’re starting off, a small pool of keywords would be a good start (5-10 keywords). This way you can really focus on incorporating these words in to your site, going for quality rather than quantity. As a few words get up and running with you ranking highly, you can look to incorporate more words whilst maintaining the running keywords and phrases.

Need a helping hand?

Talk to BED! We offer keyword analysis and SEO for sites so definitely worth a chat to see what we can offer you!