Compiling a keyphrase List
Usually, companies are sure that they already know their
ideal keyphrases. Often, they are wrong. This is typically
because it is very hard to separate oneself from a business
and look at it from the perspective of a potential customer
(rather than an insider). Compiling a keyphrase list should
not be, despite common practice, a strictly internal process.
Rather, it is best to ask everyone outside of your company
for their input, especially your customers. People are
often very surprised at the keyphrase suggestions they
get- and sometimes dismayed to realize that an average
customer doesn’t speak the same language that they
do. Only after you have put together a list of likely phrases
from external sources do you add your own. As a last step,
try to add variations, plurals, and derivatives of the
phrases on your list.
Evaluating keyphrases:
Once you have compiled a master keyphrase list, it is
time to evaluate each phrase to hone your list down to
those most likely to bring you the highest amount of quality
traffic. Although many individuals will base their assessment
of keyphrase value based only on popularity figures, there
are really three vitally important aspects of each phrase
to consider.
Popularity
By far the easiest of the three to judge is popularity,
since it is not subjective. Software like WordTracker
gives popularity figures of search phrases based upon
actual search engine activity (it also gives additional
keyphrase suggestions and variations). Such tools allow
you to assign a concrete popularity number to each phrase
to use when comparing them. Obviously, the higher the
number, the more traffic that can be expected (assuming
you are able to obtain good search engine positions).
However, this number alone is not good enough reason
to pursue any particular keyphrase, although keyphrase
analysis too often stops here.
Specificity
This is more abstract than the sheer popularity number,
but equally important. For example, let’s assume
that you were able to obtain great rankings for the keyphrase "insurance
companies" (a daunting prospect). Let’s also
assume that you only deal with auto insurance. Although "insurance
companies" might have a much higher popularity figure
than "auto insurance companies", the first
keyphrase would also be comprised of people looking for
life insurance, health insurance, and home insurance.
It is very likely that someone searching for a particular
type of insurance will refine their search after seeing
the disparate results returned from the phrase "insurance
companies". In the second, longer keyphrase, you
can be reasonably sure that a much higher percentage
of visitors will be looking for what you offer- and the
addition of the word "auto" will make it much
easier to attain higher rankings, since the longer term
will be less competitive.
Motivation of User
This factor, even more abstract than specificity, calls
for an attempt to understand the motivation of a search
engine user by simply analyzing his or her search phrase.
Assume, for example, that you were a real estate agent
in Atlanta. Two of the keyphrases you are evaluating
are "Atlanta real estate listings" and "Atlanta
real estate agents". Both phrases have very similar
popularity numbers. They are also each fairly specific,
and your services are very relevant to each. So which
phrase is better? If you look into the likely motivation
of the user, you will probably conclude that the second
is superior. While both phrases target people looking
for real estate in Atlanta, you can infer from the second
phrase that the searcher has moved beyond the point where
they are browsing local homes or checking out prices
in their neighborhood- they are looking for an agent,
which implies that they are ready to act. Often, subtle
distinctions between terms can make a large difference
on the quality of the traffic they attract.
3. Evaluating Keyphrase Performance:
Until recently, judging the performance of individual
keyphrases was a dicey proposition. Although it is possible
to tell from your log traffic analysis how many visitors
are getting to your site from each keyphrase (valuable
information, but unfortunately not enough to do much with),
it was very hard to decipher which phrases were bringing
you the most quality traffic. Recently, however, some sophisticated
but affordable tools have been developed that allow you
to judge the performance of each individual keyphrase based
upon visitor behavior. This new software makes it possible
to periodically analyze which keyphrases are bringing your
site the most valuable visitors- those who buy your products,
fill out your contact form, download your demo, etc. This
type of data, rather than the sheer number of visitors
from each search phrase alone, is invaluable when you are
refining your search engine marketing campaigns, since
you can discard and replace non-performing keyphrases and
put increased effort toward the phrases that are delivering
visitors that become customers. This kind of ongoing analysis
is the final piece of the keyphrase puzzle, and allows
you to continually target the most important phrases for
your industry, even if they change over time.
