Key Word Research

You may feel you know the key words your customers use to search for your services but are you the best person to assess this?

By using online tools, Key word research undertaken by Inspiration usually involves the following steps

• document the key terms considered to be used by prospective customers.
• research these using live tools to see how many searches there are e.g. in google, on these terms
• remember to search within the right market e.g. google.co.uk is different to google.fr etc so make sure research is done on the right location.
• The tools will suggest alternative key terms which may have higher search traffic.
• We will also consider what competitors are doing – if everyone is optimizing for the top traffic terms, often clients get a better result by targeting secondary terms with less competition.

In general the best approach is to

• Use mix of branded, generic and specific keywords
• On Google research Cost Per Click (CPC) costs
  • Goal is to determine CPC prices for keyword portfolio
  • Use keyword pricing tools – google has one.
  • Use various max CPC’s in google’s estimator to determine click vol. and avg CPC
• Related keyword research can identify search terms with similar meaning not always immediately obvious. Keyword research tools include
  • Overtures keyword suggestion box
  • Google keyword sandbox
  • Wordtracker
  • eSpotting Keyword generator
  • adwords clever wizard
  • Eurekster (think horiz and Vertically)
  • Lycos Insite – competitive rankings reports.
• In keyword research and selection take into account seasonal and emerging (http://uk.dir.yahoo.com/buzz ) trends (for certain industries / sectors) in search patterns.
• Take into account common misspellings e.g. accomodation accounts for 30% of all related search traffic.
• Phonetic research can identify keywords that sound alike – ideal for surnames / product / trademarks.
• Match terms (and your site pages) to customer intents e.g. are they learning (information terms ) / shopping (features , brands) or buying.

To find out more about keyword selection and Search Engine Optimization for Ireland click here

Tags: choosing keywords, cost per click, CPC, google adwords, keyword research, keyword research tools, online marketing, PPC, search engine optimisation, search engine optimization, seo

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.