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.
Hi Chuck,
I’ve been looking forward to seeing a post like this. You know me, I always have a question. Is the Wordtracker tool monitoring all searches or just Google searches? I was using the tool earlier today and I was wondering what the fundamental difference is between Wordtracker and Google’s keyword tool.
Thanks for this.
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I use both tools. I don’t trust one tool because, like many things, the truth is often somewhere in the middle. Sometimes there is a huge difference between WT and GKT. Other things to look at are Ebay, shopping.com and other “trends” resources.
Great post Chuck. One the parts of SEO and blogging I hate is Keyword Research. On my personal sites I do not use Keyword Trackers or do much research. I need to start doing it, but I only have a few hours a day budgeted for social media, blogging writing, and commenting. But when it comes to client projects I budget a lot of time in the research of keywords.
I been reading reading a lot of blogs lately saying Keywords are not all that important anymore. I still find they are helpful. I still spend a good deal of time setting meta tag keywords and keywords on a site. My question is, are they mostly talking about meta tag keywords or keywords in general?
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From what I understand, tags are more important than keywords as far as Google. Yahoo and Bing still use keywords from what I understand, and I also still include them in the all-in-one SEO pack. Often I use my tag words as my keywords. I use single words for keywords, and phrases as tags.
Chuck, That’s the way understand it as well. Besides even if Google isn’t using keywords that much or doesn’t weigh them as highly as other search engines, this might raise a site’s search rankings in Search Engines such as Bing.
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It only takes a min to put in all the meta tags. Why not play it safe? Who really knows what they are looking at on any given day anyway? “-)
Hey Chuck,
I agree with you. Why would you not put them if you can not harm anything. I have question for you today.
If I am commenting for business, which some could call spamming ( I don’t like that word” do I have to include a link in the text or is it fine that my name is linked to my website?