Keyword Research
Keyword Research: Understanding the Power of Searcher's Language
Far too often marketers think they know what words a potential visitor uses to construct a query to find their product, services or information in search engines. But years of research and experience have shown that search engine users use terms based on their experience and the way they relate to your product or service as a potential customer/visitor, which is often different than the way you refer to your own products and services within your company.
Extensive keyword research seeks to harmonize your keyword choices with the search terms most used by your targeted visitors.
Understanding your target audience's language and behavior at this level makes a huge difference in how easily potential visitors can find your website and how your site will rank in the search engine results as users hunt for products and/or services offered by you and your competitors.
Not All Keywords Are Equal
You need to know what words people are typing into search engine query boxes to locate products, services or information that you offer on your website. But beware -- different keywords can signify different customer intent.
Here is a simple example: If a user types in the term "lobster," he may be looking for Live Lobster Delivery, information for a report, a recipe or a restaurant in his home town. Chances are, a user that queries a one or two-word non-branded keyword is not looking for exactly what you offer on your website. When you're developing your target keyword list, first discover which keywords your visitors are querying to arrive at your website, what keywords are
producing the highest conversion rates -- and then research additional, relevant keywords and phrases.
Phrases of three words or more are becoming a more common way for people to search. So it's not only important for you to find the right keywords, but also the right keyword phrases.
Keyword analysis and optimization are not one-time procedures. To be handled thoroughly, the work must continue on an on-going basis.Search Engine Algorythms, search language, search terms and search jargon are continually changing, as may be the content of your site - so the pace at which you optimize, analyze and re-optimize must keep up with those changes. Let New England Online manage all this for you.
Find out how you can benefit from New England Online's
Keyword Analysis Services.
Or, learn about New England Online's additional
search engine marketing services:
Select keywords and phrases relevant to your product or service. |
Keyword Market Analysis
What is a Keyword Market?
In short, a Keyword Market is the total number of unique searches on the Internet that are relevant to your website. A Keyword Market is defined by the top-level or root keyword that is generally most relevant to your business. If you own a shoe store, "shoes" might be the top-level keyword for your market. "Shoes" of course is very general since there are many kinds of shoes for men and women. Top-level keywords may contain thousands of vertical keyword markets. Initial analysis on "shoes" will produce hundreds of verticals (running shoes, nike shoes, bridal shoes, golf shoes, etc.)
Understanding Your Keyword Market
Selecting the right keywords and phrases is critical to the success of any search engine marketing campaign. A thorough analysis of your keyword market(s) will ensure proper keyword selection.
Analysis involves the following:
Comprehensive Vertical and Lateral Keyword Analysis
Vertical and lateral keyword analysis refers to the discovery process you can go through to determine which Keyword Markets are relevant to your website. A vertical analysis looks at all forms of the word (singular, plural) and all the popular variations that are used in combination as a keyword phrase. A lateral analysis queries hundreds of other websites that deal with similar markets and extracts those keywords from the title tags, META tags and body text. The most frequent keywords end up at the top. Example is the best way to explain vertical and lateral keyword analysis. Let's take the keyword search "basketball" as an example:
| Vertical |
basketball
basketballs
ncaa basketball
history of basketball
basketball pictures
basketball shoes
basketball drills
basketball rules
nba basketball
basketball camps
basketball court
dimensions college basketball
basketball history
college basketball recruiting
basketball cards |
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| Lateral |
sports
basketball
michael jordan
nba
jordan
ncaa
chicago bulls
sports news
slam dunk
vertical jump
hoops
increasing vertical jump
australian basketball
lenny wilkens
free throws |
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| New England Online utilizes WordTracker for vertical and lateral analysis. |
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Qualify relevant keywords for target audience
Qualifying keywords before making a final decision is where expert subjectivity is applied to catch what the technology cannot. After conducting a comprehensive vertical and lateral keyword analysis, we are left with an exhaustive list of keywords.
Most will be relevant to your site, but many will not be. It is important to remember that these keywords represent actual searches made by actual people. Qualifying for relevant keywords involves a thorough review of your keyword market and making sure all of the keyword searches are reflective of your target audience.
Total Keyword Popularity and Competing URLs
It is important to make an evaluation of how popular a keyword is (i.e. how many times is a keyword predicted to be searched in a 24 hour period) and how it's popularity compares with the total number of competing URLs (other sites that are returned by the search engines for the same keyword searches). An analysis of this relationship will tell us where it is smart to optimize and where it is foolish.
The results of this analysis is cross referenced with your website content to determine the right page selections for optimization.
Resources:
General keywords will generate the most impressions, but will often result in the fewest number of clicks.
For example, if you sell tennis equipment, you wouldn't want to choose the keyword "tennis," because your ads could appear to people searching for subjects (such as tennis lessons) unrelated to your business. Instead, you should select more descriptive phrases for your products or services so your ads will appear to those who matter—prospective customers searching for what you have to offer.
You might want to try:
- tennis racketstennis shoes
- tennis ball machines
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| Use keyword variations to reach more prospects. |
Not everyone will enter the same keyword spellings to search for your type of product or service. You can increase your chances of reaching more prospects by including spelling variations and plurals in your keyword list.
Examples:
- tennis rackettennis rackets
- tennis racquet
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| Change keyword matching options to better target your ads. |
By specifying the types of keyword matching options that will trigger your ads, you can widen or narrow your focus on prospective customers. Your options are:
- Broad match.
Simply enter your keyword(s), such as tennis shoes
Your ad will show when users search on the keywords tennis and shoes, in any order, and even if the query includes other terms, such as tennis rackets and shoes. With broad matching, you'll also automatically enjoy expanded matching. This means that Google will analyze your keyword list, ad text, and millions of daily Google search queries, then show your ads for other relevant terms and variations (such as tennis sneakers) even if you didn't include these terms in your keyword list. (You may stop these expanded matches by adding them as negative keywords, or by changing your broad match keywords to exact or phrase matches.)
- Phrase match.
Include quotes around your keyword: "tennis shoes"
Your ad shows when users search for tennis shoes, in this order, and possibly with other search terms in the query. For example, your ad will show for red tennis shoes but not for shoes for tennis.
- Exact match.
Include brackets around your keyword: [tennis shoes]
Your ad shows when users search for tennis shoes, in this order, and without any other terms in the query. For example, your ad won't show for the queries red tennis shoes or tennis bags and shoes.
- Negative keyword.
Include a dash before your keyword: -red
If your keyword phrase is tennis shoes and your negative keyword is -red, your ad will not show if a user searches for red tennis shoes.
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