What a lot of people ask themselves is how to find keywords matching the content of their site?
Although, sometimes it looks very complicated, the whole issue can be devided into several steps and serve as a template for upcoming changes and new pages. Once you finish this job, I believe that a lot of the mentioned in the text will appear quite trivial.
Division can be made in 3 (simple?) steps:
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Make starting (a big one!) list of words and write down vital indicators
Considering that this step was already mentioned in the previous parts of this tutorial series, I believe that making a keyword list won’t represent a big problem.
Also, it is useful to organize the obtained results — for example, using Excel tables, next to each one enter the number of searches you got from the mentioned tool — and there you have your list. Combine tools, and compare the results. Take into account that all tools do not use the same time frame when geting the results, so the results must be adjusted for you to get the proper result pattern (Weekly? Monthly?).
In case you get different results for the same keyword in the same period, get the average using the equation (if you have 3 tools showing different results) that looks like this (X+Y+Z)/3, where the X is the result from the first tool, Y from the second, and Z the third…
Now we have a table with all the potential keywords which will generate you traffic, bring new visitors, profit and/or subscribers:
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Personal assesment of selected terms
After you had generated the list, added keywords with potential, it is time for human touch. Ok, the tools can suggest you possible solutions, but the final decision is up to you —how to cast out ‘intruders’ and recognize the right ones?
The purpose of this step is exactly that. To recognize and remove those less relevant, those that are not closely related to the business or the theme field of the web page. To recognize keywords with potential and extract possible keywords that can show you the future business development (something you are not currently in business with, but the research provides you with the most interesting results).
Try to express in percentage the value of certain keyword to your site. Take into consideration as many parameters as you can and in an objecitve way put the whole picture into perspective. Put yourself in a position of a profesional, client or the reader. How do they think?
Considering that it was already mentioned in the previous texts, I will not put special emphasize on this text, but do not neglect your assesment — still, it is your site we are talking about. Document you have in front of you, could have the following parameters:
Assesment of competition and the ‘weight’ of keywords
Maybe you have decided on a deadly combination, but the competition can think in the same way. And to position yourselfs for the extremily competitive keyword, and when the competition knows its business…that’s quite a problem.
It is very important to get to know the competition and to find out how valuable a certain keyword is, because it will have a direct influence on your off-page optimization. In case you decide on a highly competitive term, you need to be prepared to fight for it. It will take more time, more methods and techniques, but if you had the wrong assesment, it might not give you the results you expected. After all, maybe the time invested in a positioning of that keyword is not cost-effective.
If you don’t know what you are getting yourself into, a good start could be the selection of several not so competitive terms. By doing that, you will get to know the competition, the implementation of off-page strategies and optimization, and you will get ‘the touch’ which will be of use to you in the future.
The most common mistake is selecting keywords that turn out to be more than you can handle. Asses the amount of time you have at disposal, your knowledge, will and patience you are willing to invest in order to achieve your goals.
SEOmoz tools could help you in assesment. Unfortunately, the most interesting one (Keyword Difficulty) is available only for subscribers, so you’ll have to manage with what you can get in order to get information about your competition and the value of keywords…
