Keyword Research & Analysis

So What Are Keywords?

In the context of the Web, a keyword is a term that a person enters into a search engine to find specific information. Most people enter search phrases that consist of between two and five words. Such phrases may be called search phrases, keyword phrases, query phrases, or just keywords, but they all mean the same thing.

Your most important keywords are those best and most relevant search phrases you want your website to be found for on a search results page in Google. Good keyword phrases are specific and descriptive. It is better to have 100 highly-qualified visitors who find your site listed in Google under a particular search phrase than to have 1,000 visitors who find your site listed under a generic search phrase and then aren’t that interested in what you offer once they get to your site.

Important: Your ultimate objective shouldn’t be just to get lots of traffic to your site from high rankings (although this is important), but instead should be to get a high sales conversion. Having a #1 listing in Google means nothing unless you can convert visitors to your website into satisfied customers or have them at least take a next desired action like filling out a form.

The more targeted and specific your chosen keywords are, the greater the chance that visitors to your site will find what they are looking for. You want a high “click-to-sales” or high “visitors-to-customers” ratio. As such, you need to start thinking like your customers. Determine what it is that they need, what problems they have, and what solutions you can offer to help them.

So how do you determine which keywords are most important and relevant for your website? There are two main methods, as follows:

1. By using an online keyword tools. The gold standards are KeywordDiscovery (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com) and WordTracker (http://www.wordtracker.com). Do this first and spend time doing it right.

2. By analyzing your website traffic statistics. Do this later over time to validate the results of method 1 and to find new keywords.