---

SEO Tutorial:

1. Keyword Research 2. Web Site Copywriting 3. Tag Optimization 4. Site Layout 5. Link Building

---

Keyword Research

Keyword Research is the foundation of an effective SEO campaign!

An effective SEO campaign starts with choosing keywords that work. These are keywords that are highly targeted, relevant, and actually used to search for the types of products or services your website offers.

There is nothing random about choosing the right keywords. It's a process that requires keyword research. Begin the keyword research process by developing a working list of keyword phrases. Then, refine that list of keywords based on the actual searches performed, relevance, and competitiveness. The final step involves choosing keywords that work best for you.

Developing a Working List of Keywords

A single keyword will always return a kazillion results and will never return high search engine ranking. That works out well because most people do not search using a single keyword anyway! You want to choose 2 to 4 words that make up keyword phrases. Come up with as many phrases as possible...this should be a long list!

Think like your customers -
Being very engrossed and knowledgeable about your business, you may use insider lingo that doesn't come naturally to the consumer. For example, an architect may naturally use verbage like architectural design, while someone searching for his services may, more naturally, use words like house plans or home floor plans.

• Brainstorm with friends and family.
• Talk to your clients, paying close attention to the verbage they use.
• If your services are locale specific, use city, state, ect.. in some of your phrases.
• Search on Google, Yahoo, and MSN, notating which keyword phrases return relevant results.
• Using some of the keyword research tools below, choose some complimentary keyword phrases to add to your list.

Once you've researched, exhausting all your resources, you should have compiled a good, long working keyword list. Now its time to research yet again in order to refine your list.

Refining your Keywords

Consider relevance -
Decide which keyword phrases are the most relevant for your services and products. Notate the relevance of each.

Choosing keywords that are not-relevant is a waste of your time. Don't optimize for the keyword red widgets if you only offer green widgets and blue widgets. Keywords that are not relevant to the actual services or products you offer, should be marked off your list.

Research actual searches -
Using the keyword research tools above, find out how often each phrase is actually searched on. Choosing keywords that aren't actually used in searches is a waste of your time. Mark rarely or never searched on phrases off your list.

Research keyword competitiveness -
This is a very important part of your research. Do a search in Google on each phrase you have left. Note 2 things: 1) The number of results that are returned for each phrase, and 2) the url of the top 10 (or 20) websites for each individual phrase.

You will base the competitiveness of the phrase on the link popularity of the top ranked sites for that phrase. We'll get more into building link popularity later, but for now, just note how many links are pointing to the top sites.

The tool below will tell you how many links are pointing to a particular site (not link relevance or quality, just numbers). For our purposes, just research the backlinks reported by Yahoo.

**Since you will be redirected to another site, bookmark this keyword research page before you use this tool. Once you are on that site, use your back button to return to this tutorial.

Link Popularity Tool © SEO Chat URL Valid URL to check

Based on your research of Yahoo link popularity, decide if you can compete for these keyword phrases by obtaining a similar number of backlinks (links pointing to your site from other relevant sites). Choosing competitive keywords requires more link building. More link building means more research, more time, more work, and usually a bigger budget.

If the top ranking sites for a particular keyword phrase have so much link popularity that it makes you sick, cross that keyword phrase off your list. For keywords you feel you can (or possibly can) compete for, keep them and notate the competitiveness of each (highly, slightly, etc.)

Finalizing your Keyword List

When you have completed your keyword research, you should have a list of relevant, searched on keywords that you feel you can compete for.

Choosing the right number of keywords -
You will want to optimize each webpage for 1-3 keyword phrases. This doesn't mean that a 3 page website can be optimized for 9 keyword phrases....it can't. Though each page can be optimized for more than one of your keyword phrases, you will need at least 2 to 3 pages of web site copy per keyword phrase.

Based on the amount of copy and number of webpages you will start with, choose the specific keywords you want to optimize for.
You can optimize this process by:

• Choosing a maximum of 1 keyword phrase for every 2 pages of content.
• Choosing keywords that have the highest relevance to the content you will start out with.
• Choosing a limited number of the more highly competitive keywords.
• Choosing a larger number of the less competitive keywords.

Keep your list!

After all, you did a lot of keyword research to compile all those keywords! As your website grows with more copy and pages, you can optimize for more keyword phrases. Having your carefully researched list of keyword phrases will come in very handy.

---

SEO Tutorial:

1. Keyword Research 2. Web Site Copywriting 3. Tag Optimization 4. Site Layout 5. Link Building

---

If you want to perform your own SEO but don't care for choosing keywords, you may want to contact Dan Thies and the team at SEO Research Labs for a keyword research report.

Choosing the right keywords is an integral part of our Website Optimization and Internet Marketing Services.