Choosing Targeted Keyword Phrases

Small business owners looking to offer their products and services online using a website, are often  confused about where to start. Before the site is built, it is best to do some keyword research in your particular market.

These are four points that I try to keep in mind when doing keyword research for a particular product or service.  I must also mention that it is not always possible for phrases in certain markets to meet all the criteria. You have to be flexible while at the same time charting toward a particular goal.

Three Targets

I like to have the lead keyword phrase to be the domain name, as well as being the first phrase in the home page title tag. I use the other two phrases in the title tag if room allows, as well as for post titles, categories, and other page title tags.

Often you can start to rank for these lesser phrases first. It is also a good idea and see what phrases start showing up naturally, and make adjustments to play off this.

Three Word Phrases

I like to use long-tail keyword phrases consisting of three to five words that can be used in a sentence. Often these phrases are less competitive and allow a site to gain a toe-hold in the SERP door.

Less Than 1,000,000 Listings

I try and keep under one million listings to start out if at all possible. This is sometimes easier to do in a local area, but not always. It all depends on your market.

More than 15 Daily Search

Using the free Wordtracker tool, I like to have the daily search volume to be at least 15. I also check the phrase in the Google Keyword tool just to get a comparison. While there are many keyword research tools to use, Wordtracker and the Google Keyword tool are my primary tools.

Once I have my keyword phrases I know what to build my content around. After that it’s monitor and adjust. It’s like sailing a ship through the cyber seas!

Again, finding phrases that meet all these criteria is not always possible. It’s more a general guide that I try to use.

Basic Approach to Keyword Research

This is the basic process for keyword research that I use when first trying to come up with good keyword terms to begin driving a site to top free organic listings.

Let’s say we have a candle stick maker in Chicago who makes custom handmade candles. Let’s say he already has a properly formatted website with the URL handmadecandleschicago.com, and proper permalink structure. He has some content, a few photos, and a blog. He is ready to start tweaking and building.

It’s a good thing our candlestick maker chose to use WordPress rather than one of those old school “from scratch” websites, because with the WordPress All in One SEO Plugin, it will not be hard to have fantastic control of all his SEO settings. (Yes I love WordPress!)

(Note: While there are fantastic websites, many of the sites I see are still being constructed with outdated software and techniques. It sounds good to have a site made from the ground up rather than from a template, but in reality, many of these sites are like driving down the Dan Ryan in a horse a buggy. WordPress has been around a long time, and offers the highest quality, the greatest selection of tools and features, and cruses through cyberstreets at the speed of light.)

Keyword Brain Storming

The first thing I do is look and see what people are searching for by placing the short-tail phrase in the free Wordtracker tool. In this case I would put in the words “chicago” and “candlestick.” This will give me a list of search phrases people are actually using. Rather than just start brainstorming about what I think people would type in their search bar to look for candlestick makers in Chicago, it’s better to look and see what people are actually searching for.

After I have my list I then start putting the terms that I came up with through several other tools to get some accurate search volumes.  This process basically gets it down to what keywords people are actually using, and in what numbers. This all can take some time, and you often have to follow your gut instinct. I think SEO is half science and half art.

Two Keyword Phrase Groups

I try to come up with three to five top keyword phrases to target. I use this list as my main list and start charting my course down cyberstreet looking for a way to get my foot in the door. I use my top keyword phrases in my heading, my title tags, and in the page text.

I also come up with a sub-list of terms that are a little different. For example, “Chicago candlestick” could be in my top phrase list because that’s what most people use, and the keyword phrase “chicago candle stick” could be in a sub-list.

If I see that 49,000 people used the keyword phrase “Chicago candlestick” last month, I want to use that. But 14,000 people may have also used the keyword phrase “chicago candle stick” as well. Sometimes I get my foot in the door using these lesser used terms. This helps to get some force behind me to start climbing into the top listings.

I may start to notice that people are finding the site naturally, or more often with other keywords, I make adjustments as necessary to achieve the greatest potential organic listings, and start building from there. It can take some time to get things right.

Using A Variety of Keyword Phrases

Keyword density is no longer as important as unique original content. Don’t waste your time doing calculations on density, write good content and use your target keywords in the title tag, heading, once in the first sentence, and one or two times in the text. Using a variety of related keywords also has relevancy. I use my top keyword group in heading tags, title tags and page text. Then I sprinkle the sub group keywords in the individual post tags and keyword lists. I think this gives the cyber critters lots of variety to sink their teeth into. This, combined with rich lush text, provides a powerful way to start good small business website SEO.

But That’s Not All…

Like everything with SEO, it’s not just about good keywords, or a clean theme, or submission to 45 search engines and 55 web directories; SEO is not about doing just one thing. Good SEO is a matter of many small basic steps that all add up. The most important factor in SEO, is quality useful content. This will win the day over all the techno jumbo.

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