How well do you know your SEO keywords?

[Blue Rock Digital]

Over the years i have found that most companies i have spoken to really don't know which keywords and phrases they should be targeting in the search engines, which i guess is one of the reasons they seek professional advice in the first place. That said, it still surprises me time and again how far off the mark some are.

How do you go about your keyword research and how effective are you at ranking for those keywords? Do you even feel you need to rank for keywords?

If you are a web developer or SEO i welcome your comments too.

 

[PropertyWebmasters]

It's amazing how many companies I carry out keyword research for because they don't have a clue what they are wanting to rank for.

A lot of companies say they want to rank for a certain keyword that gains no search volume whereas other similar keywords would be more reliable.

To define how a company targets keywords, we create a long list of every possible keyword permutation, taken from website content, meta data, google searches and competitors sites. From here we narrow they keywords down into categories for each page, then we use Google Ad Words to retrieve search volumes. From here we carry out on page optimisation techniques while tracking the specific keywords where we have seen clients rankings improve through this process.

 

[Blue Rock Digital]

@PropertyWebmasters we hear similar from companies in terms of keywords they want to rank for that have zero search volume. We have also had many conversations with companies who say that they already rank on page one in Google when people type in their company name and they actually think this is what ranking on page one is all about.

We go through a similar process to you when doing keyword research. It's all about search volume and user intent for us.

It can be an uphill struggle to get the penny to drop with some business owners and decision makers as regards what they should be ranking for but once it does drop they can't believe they didn't understand it better in the first place.

 

[PropertyWebmasters]

I totally Agree! It is so much better if the client understands digital and SEO to at least a certain extent

Very interesting post, it will be interesting to see if others have different keyword related processes.

 

[fisicx]

...we hear similar from companies in terms of keywords they want to rank for that have zero search volume.

Zreo or low?

Low search volumes are fine if you only need one good lead per day. A plumber can only do one boiler install per day so in theory he only needs one phone call per day to be busy all week.

 

[Blue Rock Digital]

@fisicx i did say zero (please see post above)

 

[fisicx]

I know you said zero but very often highly targeted long tail keywords are shown in the keyword tools as having zero searches when I know from experience they do get searched and are very lucrative.

 

[PropertyWebmasters]

@fisicx Is there any other tools that you can use to get more accurate search volumes?

 

[Blue Rock Digital]

@fisicx point taken and i completely agree

 

[fisicx]

No tools will ever give you accurate search volumes. Even the Google keyword tool is often very wrong (mainly because it's an adwords tool).

I use the tools for comparisons then do a load of testing to find out which ones bring in the most money. Find a niche and exploit it to the max. One of my big money sites gets under 20 visitors per day for a each longtail but I can convert over half of them so the ROI is huge.

 

[micheal1981]

I totally Agree! It is so much better if the client understands digital and SEO to at least a certain extent

Very interesting post, it will be interesting to see if others have different keyword related processes.

Its always good to explain the process rather than just do the work.It is true though when the penny drops they often wonder why they didnt understand it very well in the first place!

 

[StevePoster]

Relying on just tools will never give accurate data but only the estimation results. Give your way to conduct a study wherein you will have an accurate data to be the basis of your research.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

On SEO not AdWords

Ok you find say five good keywords for a product how do you use them, you may be clever and combine a couple into Name, Meta and product but what about the rest

If you look up work trousers there are thousands or hits, but only a few options to vary it like say Dickie's Work Trousers, 100% Cotton work trousers

Alternatively do if you have say ten different work trousers do you do you make each different. this is assuming the work trousers each have very little difference to use

 

[fisicx]

And not everyone will call the product the same thing as you. I wanted a boiler suit but it turns out they are called overalls. The more exact you become the more you can lose the outliers - and these can be very lucrative.

 

[Tin]

Alternatively do if you have say ten different work trousers do you do you make each different. this is assuming the work trousers each have very little difference to use

You focus on the unique differentiators and tilt the individual product page slightly in its favour, the single word that makes each product unique, for example if you were selling boxes of...

A4 white Conqueror paper
and also...

A5 white Conqueror paper and
A6 white Conqueror paper

then you'd focus on the unique differences between them, A4, A5 and A6 despite them all really being the same thing - a sheet of white Conqueror paper.