Keyword Research

Keyword Research

Fred Sexton
bigcheese@mouseandman.com
@FredSexton
March 2009

Charlotte SEM Association
Twitter hashtag #SEMCLT

The first step to success with any marketing
campaign is to know your message. With search
marketing, that means knowing the search terms
that are being used by your target audience.
Understand what they’re searching for, and you
can tune-in to their traffic via search engines.
This presentation covers tools and techniques of
performing keyword research.

quot;Learning the Lingo
of Your Customerquot;
Marketing 101
●

Ex: Kodak
●

Physical/tangible
–

Benefit
–

Customer lingo doesn't equal
●

management lingo

What is keyword research?

Process of selecting keywords that are
●

relevant to your site and are used by potential
customers as query terms.

Why Keyword Research?

First step in (my) search marketing strategy
●

Correct bad keyword choices (negative
●

keywords with Adwords)
Speak the customer’s language (some CEOs
●

think they know how to describe their
customers)
Develop list of relevant terms to target in SEO,
●

PPC, Blogs, Videos, Social Media, and offline
documentation
Competitor Watch
●

Why Keyword Research? (cont)

Keywords give ideas for site design and
●

navigation
Discover new keyword opportunities
●

Longtail Keywords

3/4 or greater words
●

Less competition
●

More of them
●

Sum of longtail is bigger!
●

Longtail Keywords

Tails can deviate at different rates
●

Typically:
●

Red=Newer
–

Blue=Older
–

Stages
Keyword Discovery
●

Multiple Sources
–

Tools
–

Keyword Addition/Subtraction
●

Client approval
–

Keyword Evaluation
●

Volume
–

User Intent (potential conversion rate)
–

Competition
–

Performance
–

Keyword Discovery

Free expression writing, all words are good
●

Keywords from company
●

Interviews
–

Press Releases
–

Web site
–

Keyword Discovery

Site Search Box
●

Reveals real/actual site keywords
–

Number of words searchers are using
–

Make sure you collect site search data
–

Keyword Discovery

Customer Lingo
●

Interview them, “Why did you buy from us?”
–

Customer surveys
–

Talk to sales staff who talks with customer
–

The best keywords come straight from the
customer’s mouth.

Keyword Discovery

Always use multiple sources
●

Keyword Discovery

Establish difficulty
●

Search in Google for:
–

Internet Marketing 103,000,000
–

“Internet Marketing” 43,000,000
–

allintitle: Internet Marketing 2,450,000
–

allintitle: “Internet Marketing” 2,200,000
–

allinurl: quot;internet marketingquot; 1,170,000
–

Competitor investigation (PPC)

Creating Keyword Lists

Find exact search phrases
●

Log Files (automated programs)
–

GA hack
–

Hittail
–

Keyword Tools

Google Keyword Suggestion Tool
● ●

Tool Hitwise
●

WordTracker
●
Hitwise
●

Trellian Keyword
●
GoodKeywords.com
●
Discovery
adCenter Labs Tools
●
Google Webmaster
●

Microsoft adCenter
Tools ●

Add In for Excel
Google Insights
●

Nichebot
●
Google Trends
●

Keyword Tools

Live example
●

Google Keyword Tool
–

Google Trends
–

Keyword Addition

Comparison (best, compare, reviews)
●

Adjectives
●

Price (cheap, free, discount)
–

Product (green, plus size, unique)
–

Intended use (gift for mother, baptism gown)
●

Brand / vendor / manufacturer / product #
●

(ebay)
Location / Local
●

Action (apply, book, find, buy)
●

Permutations

Keyword permutation tools
●

Enter keyword terms, and modifiers
–

Combines variations of phrases
–

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-
●

list/generator.php

Popularity
Being popular isn't always the best (longtail)
●

Low Hanging Fruit
–

Popular phrases
●

Less relevant
–

More competitive/expensive
–

Less Popular
●

More focused
–

Satisfies searchers
–

Higher conversion
–

Less traffic per keyword
–

Consider User Intent
Understand the “why”
●

Research vs Purchase (“just looking”)
–

Stage in buying process
–

Buying vs Browsing
●

“car reviews”
–

“fast auto financing”
–

Adjust ad copy and landing page to reflect
●

knowledge level or interest
Misspellings
–

Location from where visitors are coming from
–

Searcher Behavior

Navigational
●

I just want to be at your web site.
–

Informational
●

Do blue widgets require special maintenance?
–

Ad potential?
●

Transactional
●

Interactive, purchase, subscribe, BUY!
–

I want financing to buy a hybrid car.
–

Competition

Are they doing PPC? How much are the bids?
●

How optimized are their sites?
●

What’s their linkage situation?
●

Quality of links
–

Anchor text
–

Plurality

Web Design
●

Web Design Companies
●

Web Design Company
●

Top Web Design Company
●

Top Charlotte Web Design Company
●

Performance Considerations

PPC Testing
●

●

So, now what...

Select and optimize 2 related phrases per
●

page
Don’t keyword stuff.
●

Optimal KW density = 7%...maybe ;)
–

Where on page?

Page title tags
●

Headers (H1,H2 tags)
●

Anchor text
●

META keywords & descriptions
●

Page URLs
●

Internal linking
●

Keyword Research for Paid
Campaigns (Negative Keywords)
Negative Keywords
●

They prevent search engines from displaying
–
your ads:
Common examples are “free” or “cheap”.
●

Great for filtering out irrelevant queries:
●

Irrelevant clicks cost money, but hurt CTR,
–
quality score, conversion % and
Don’t use negative keywords with only exact
●

match option.

Summary

Remember… It’s not about the keywords You
●

want to be found on...

It’s about the keywords the End User uses to
●

find you.

Summary

The success/failure of your search campaign
●

depends on good keywords selection.
Keyword research is always on-going.
●

Don’t use popularity as the only criteria.
●

Get feedback, and if term isn’t working,change
●

it!

Questions

Fred Sexton
bigcheese@mouseandman.com
@FredSexton

Keyword Research

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