1. Which Search Terms to Target

This is somewhat subjective & somewhat objective. It really depends on 4 primary interrelated variables:

i.   the level of competition for the phrase

ii.  the relationship between search query language (phrase), search query intent (expectation/anticipated result), and the relevance of the search phrase to your offering (perceived or real match/deviation)

iii. your search marketing objectives

iv. your resources

Example #1. If the query language is very exploratory (generic; e.g. ‘laptop computers’ = 9.1m searches/mo [US]), the competition is relatively high (46m results), and the expectation is more specific (e.g. ‘small dell laptop’ = 2.5K searches/mo [US]) – then you can assume that your primary target audience is not search savvy, and that it’s going to take some work. So you refer back to your other variables:

- Does achieving a good rank for a generic term fit with your objectives?

- Do you have the resources (time, people, money) to commit to targeting this type of phrase set?

Example #2. If your search marketing objective is to generate brand awareness, then targeting more generic, high volume terms makes sense, assuming you have the resources, but; if your search marketing objective is driven by a purely conversion based metric, and you have limited organic pages (by design/default/intent/limitation/whatever), it may make sense to target a more specific set of phrases.

2. Where to Place your Selected Key-Phrases

Most old-hats will know these points, but to continue with the high-level overview, the first thing you need to do is audit your existing URL structure once you have completed the keyword research:

• Get rid of unnecessary folders e.g.:

- yoursite.com/product1group/product1a/overview/product.htm

• Create meaningful keyword rich folders e.g.:

- yoursite.com/dell-laptop-computers/product.htm

- yoursite.com/hp-laptop-computers/product.htm

• Create meaningful keyword rich files e.g.:

- yoursite.com/dell-laptop-computers/small-dell-laptop.htm

- yoursite.com/hp-laptop-computers/hp-business-laptop.htm

• 301 redirect all old files to the most relevant new file. Depending on objectives this could be to the new file for which you anticipate the highest volume of traffic, or for which you anticipate the highest number of conversions (e.g., based on web analytics of the existing site)

Then place the selected keyphrase per page:

• in the title tag (sticking to 70 characters with spaces) – for SEO. Make the title short and match the anticipated search query language & intent as closely as possible e.g.:
  • HP Business Laptop | HP Laptop Computers 
  • Unless you are a very well known brand name, with a high Net Promoter score, don’t include your brand name unless you really have to.
• in the META description (sticking to 155 characters + spaces) – for usability, click-through and some SEO effect e.g.:
  • Easily compare HP business laptops. 1 year factory warranty + 18 months from yoursite.com. Easy payment terms. We get you started – Fast! Find out more…

• in the <h> tags; use the specific term in the <h1> and the more generic term in an <h2> where possible – for SEO and usability e.g.:
  • <h1> Looking for Your Next HP Business Laptop?</h1>
  • <h2> Easily Compare & Choose from our Comprehensive Selection of HP Laptop Computers</h2>
• in the ALT attributes and image names; keep your image naming protocol clean, and remember to title your images as well (see ‘Accessibility and ARIA’) – for SEO and usability
• in the content. Many SEO’s say that keyword density is not important. I disagree – with a caveat; keyword density is vitally important – within reason… If the target keyphrase does not appear in the copy more than a few times in relevant areas, then the page may not actually be relevant to the term regardless of being placed in other key areas. I’m not saying there is a keyword density limit – max or min. What I am saying is:
  • write your content thoughtfully bearing in mind your <h> tags and your actual intent, assuming your intent is to arm people with more information around your core targeted phrases
  • never go back and insert keyphrases into copy once it is written
  • never write copy simply to target keyphrases
  • keep it natural, readable, usable and relevant.
  • it’s simple, yet it’s not. Experienced web copy-writers are worth their weight in gold.
• in the navigation and in your internal linking practice. This may cause some ructions with legal/branding/usability, and if you want to find out how you might get around these challenges, come to my session at Pubcon !

3. Optimized Use of Your Keyphrases

I’ll mention Pubcon again, but in the interim… make sure:

• you know what tag-lines are being used by offline marketing, and create pages
• you connect with PR (press release, not page rank – y’sll have a one track mind)
• you connect with social and help with blog posts, asks and answers and with creating pages around key positives or negatives regarding your offering to speak to detractors and support evangelists. More than 20% of search results are now UGC based. Don’t miss out by ignoring commentary, forums and the social space (a topic I have exhausted in previous posts and nearly bored my lovely readers to death – check them out if you missed them)

Come follow me on Twitter! And please come back soon…

~ Laura

• Yes, branding is important.
• Yes, your users are more important, and the usability and logical structure of your site is vital.
• Yes, you may have legal issues to consider.
• No, those do not pose a problem as you begin to develop you IA – though they might in the refinement stages.

First, let’s settle on a business type… say our ‘client’ is an online gift shop (www.UniqueGifts4YouOnline.com – not taken as of posting according to GoDaddy)

Starting with Wordtracker, let’s see what we get – I’m not pulling all the data for this illustration for somewhat obvious reasons J:

Now, in practice we would conduct a whole lot more research for the first phase, and we would run the search through one or two other keyword research tools to check data and see what we missed. Let’s assume we did, and it stayed the same (never gonna happen… but for the purposes of this post)…

(Some) Insights so far:

1. People are searching for graduation gifts nearly 70% more often than any other type of gift. Perhaps targeting ‘graduation’ terms in PPC with carefully worded adcopy due to likely impressions would be prudent. Also, assuming the client sells ‘graduation’ gifts, maybe an initiative to include a digital transferable voucher for graduation gifts to all online purchasers might be worth considering.
2. ‘Unique’ and ‘last minute’ seem to be cropping up a few times
3. There is a mix of searches on the singular and plural versions of the word ‘gift’. Is the client brand consciously concerned to the extent that they will want to maintain a uniform (i.e. all singular or all plural terms) approach to content presentation in the navigation and throughout the site? Find out now. We’ll assume not for the purpose of this illustration.
4. ‘Gift registry’ is searched for a lot. If the client doesn’t offer a gift registry service, perhaps they should investigate it.

Phase 2: Begin to form your IA outline. For example (I color coded the folder depths);

1*Home (Gift Store)

1*Gifts

Ø Graduation Gifts

Ø Holiday Gifts

Ø Gift Cards

·         Visa Gift Cards

·         Starbucks Gift Card

·         American Express Gift Cards

Ø Unique Gifts

·         Unique Baby Gifts

·         Unique Gift Children

·         Unique Gift Idea

Ø Birthday Gift

Ø Anniversary Gifts

Ø Personalized Gifts

Ø Business Gift

Ø Baby Shower Gift

·         Gifts for dad’s to be

1*Gift ideas

Ø Newborn Gift Idea

Ø Graduation Gift Ideas

Ø Last Minute Gift Ideas

1*Gift Registry

Phase 3: Refine and maximize usability based on SEO considerations

• I reckon that it looks a mess – so let’s alphabetize it.
• I also think that there is a whole lot of duplicate page possibilities, so we’ll cross link, and
• There is significant opportunity for internal linking, so we’ll indicate to copy where they should be linking to another page within the body copy. We’ll also delve a little deeper into the primary phrases; I’ll choose ‘anniversary gifts’ and ‘personalized gifts’.

1*Home (Gift Store)

1*Gifts

Ø Anniversary Gifts [link to anniversary gift ideas]

·         50^th Anniversary Gifts

·         Traditional Anniversary Gifts

·         Wedding Anniversary Gifts [link to 50^th anniversary gifts]

Ø Baby Shower Gift

·         Gifts for dad’s to be

Ø Birthday Gift

Ø Business Gift

Ø Gift Cards

·         Visa Gift Cards

·         Starbucks Gift Card

·         American Express Gift Cards

Ø Graduation Gifts

·         Personalized Graduation Gifts

Ø Holiday Gifts

Ø Personalized Gifts

·         Homemade gift ideas for boyfriend

·         Personalized Baby Gift (cross link to same page listed under ‘Unique Baby Gifts’)

·         Personalized Graduation Gifts (cross link to same page listed under ‘Graduation Gifts’)

Ø Unique Gifts

·         Unique Anniversary Gifts (cross link Anniversary Gifts)

·         Unique Baby Gifts

§ Personalized Baby Gift (cross link)

·         Unique Gift Children

·         Unique Gift Idea

1*Gift ideas

Ø Anniversary Gift Ideas [link to Anniversary Gifts]

        ·        Homemade Anniversary Gift Ideas

Ø Graduation Gift Ideas [link to Graduation Gifts]

Ø Last Minute Gift Ideas

        ·       Gift Cards (cross link)

       ·        Homemade Anniversary Gift IdeasLast Minute Valentine Gifts [Link to both ‘Anniversary Gift’ and ‘Anniversary Gift Ideas’ pages]

Ø Newborn Gift Idea

        ·        Unique baby gifts (cross link)

1*Gift Registry

(Some) More Insights:

While ‘homemade gifts’ has a relatively low search volume at only 73 (WT searches) there are a lot of folks looking for homemade gifts for graduation, boyfriends and more. Options include expanding offering to include arts and crafts and idea books and materials, and maybe a separate primary navigation button to ‘Homemade Gifts’ – depends on clients brand and willingness to expand product offering.

I also don’t like the term ‘unique gift children’ [1,558 WT]. Nearest term is not much better and with a count of [2 WT]. This is where, if you haven’t (which is bad, very bad), you would check against another keyword research tool. If the keyword research tools simply don’t make a usable term, change it with a stop word if possible. If not, tell the client your recommendations. I think that ‘for‘ might be a stop word; therefore I might offer the alternative of ‘unique gift for children’. I realise that is not grammatically correct, but the search volume on the term is enormous (as is the competition). This is a classic case of ‘will the user get it’? ‘be offended by it’? ‘misinterpret it’? And ‘can the brand handle it? I’m going to leave it as stands for this post.

Phase 4*: Check out the competition and other related sites and add other primary links

(*Assuming we have covered all bases, have conducted full keyword research, and cross linked and ‘internally linked’ for copy wherever possible)

Check out how many pages/sites are competing for the terms you are planning on targeting. If you are in this (gift) industry, you have some work to do with backlinking and establishing yourself via SMM and presence if you’re new… (maybe even if you’re old but haven’t harnessed the backlink capacity of the industry yet). Linking is not a one time thing. NOR is it the point of this post…

Maybe the client should consider photo albums? Linking up with Party Services? Selling invitations?

Perhaps presenting the gift categories as presented above by ‘Feeling’ (and with additional keyword research); as in:

• Cheer Up Gifts
• Get Better Soon Gifts
• I Love You Gift
• Thank You Gift

…

Or maybe by ‘Type’ (again with more Keyword research); as in:

• Christian Gifts
• Funny Gifts
• Geeky Gifts
• Trendy Gifts
• Whacky Gifts

Perhaps an internal search facility is warranted?

Don’t forget the usuals. For example:

• About Us
• FAQ
• Shipping & Handling
• Returns Policy
• Contact Us
• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Blog (with RSS)
• Sitemap
• Etc…

Phase 5: Optimize Your Home Page

I realize that it may seem odd focusing on your home page last, it’s not really. Your home page will be optimized for your brand and your highest level keyphrases. Wait until you have your IA worked out, and then go back.

Two phrases picked out so far for the Home page are:

‘Gifts’ is waaay to generic. ‘Gift Store’ is a little more on target.

Optimize for these two as well as including the term ‘unique’ (based on a quick review of only WT here):

So present the home page with initial suggested ‘Optimization Title Element’ when you present the IA. For example:

Home Page Title: Gifts Online from Your Unique Gift Store | UniqueGifts4YouOnline

And finally…

Expect back and forth with the client as they work through the final IA. As long as you have done due diligence, and you stand your ground and influence and educate like crazy, you’ve done your job. For example; why optimize for both ‘Graduation Gifts’ and ‘Graduation Gift Ideas’?:

• Search query intent and search query language are usually relatively closely associated when it comes to people who are internet savvy; not so much with those who are not.
• ‘Idea’ copy can be significantly different to ‘gift copy’ if you have a half decent copy writer.
• Interlinking is not a crime.

Whatever you do, don’t start page level optimizations until you have their have their sign-off approval in your hot-sticky (and somewhat geeky) hands J. Then provide a list of related terms on a page by page basis for copy writers before you optimize as they need to be working on the copy as you finish the html elements. Work with them as closely as possible and be open to contact (all this assuming you are not a pro copy writer and thus ‘Person-Super-SEO’ who is an expert SEO, crap-hot copywriter and guru-coder deluxe).

And that, dear readers, is how keyword research can – and should in my perfect SEO world J – provide you with a darned hot website architecture foundation.

This post will try to demystify the issue.

Why Spying on the Online Competition Can Benefit SEM (SEO & PPC) Efforts

Competitive intelligence can tell what phrases your competition is effectively ranking on, and what they aren’t, providing you with additional guidance as you plan your organic and paid search strategies.

How to Spy on the Online Competition

SEO – First;

·    Check out your top online competitors.

·    Check their title tags, META data, headers and primary targeted terms. Make a list of terms for which they appear to be optimizing.

·    Run the terms they are ‘optimized’ for through Google and see if they rank in the top 10 (or 30). Make a note of the terms they actually rank for.

·    Then run their URL through SEODigger.com. For example; if you are a Sushi restaurant in Chicago, SushiWabi.com is a direct online competitor.  SEODigger.com will show you (depending on data centers and other impacting factors, but it’s not a bad guide) what positions this site holds in Google, and for what terms.

·    Then run their URL through SpyFu.com. If you are a subscriber, their results are more comprehensive. The free tool is not a bad quick check on SEODigger for organic results, but is more useful for seeing their Paid Search terms. Which we look at in the Paid search step below.

·    Run the list of ranking terms through Wordtracker, Google Keywords, KeyWord Discovery, Suggest tools on the various search engines.

·    Make a list of the top 20-50 terms on each keyword research resource you use (use at least 2 or 3 to take into account variations and discrepancies).

·    Make this list for each primary term you are investigating, noting which competitor is advertising for which primary term, and what the search volume and competition for each term is. Apply information in Third step below…

SEO – Second;

·    Check out your top offline competitors, especially if your business is offline based or has a strong offline market. If your offline competitors are the same as your online competitors it makes life a smidge easier, but it is not always the case.

·    For example: In the town of Calgary in Alberta, a search on plumbers yields a results listing ‘grouped’ plumbers with a list of ‘top plumbers’

·    BUT If I look in the YellowPages (offline) I get:

o        Knight Plumbing

o        Roto-Rooters

o        Action Auger

o        Abacus

·    none of the plumbers mentioned in my online list from my first selection are mentioned. Incidentally the iYP search yields nearly the same results. This is indicating that the top offline listings with their big YP ads are hitting the iYP advertising as well… Anyone ever tell them about SEO? I reckon iYP is keeping it close. They can’t really take to SEO can they… way too much conflict of interest.

·    Take these top offline competitors and run them through Google looking to see if they have websites, and if they have, what they are optimized for. If you are not optimized, you may see some strong relationships between their site and yours in terms of what is being missed. It’s a nice way to view a poorly optimized site and figure out why they are not working when compared to competitors that are – almost a DIY audit on the competition. You can request that your SEO Consultant do that for you as extra data for future development.

SEO – Third;

Take all the terms you have seen, even if they are not ranking a site but are relevant to your business. Pass them to your IA team, and get a decent site plan drawn up utilizing the primary keywords. Check, refine, review and then continue as per best practice SEO redevelopment. (I reccommend reading the post on Keyword Research, and Search Query vs Search Intent as well)

Paid Search

·    Take the data gleaned from SEODigger.

·    Look at the PPC data from SpyFu.com. For a better example I’ll look at a restaurant that is advertising via PPC (I can only see those advertising across North America and including Canada in their geo-target). Let’s look at OliveGarden.com.

o     This site has a lot more traffic, and the image shows organic data on competitors as well as search terms. Paid subscription yields more data, but for this exercise this is sufficient.

o     PPC data from the Olive Garden tells us whose advertising on prime terms *click a term in the ‘advertisements’* section as above and you’ll see the top list of 10 PPC competitors ranking for the phrase you clicked in Google. Again, subscription gives much more info. The list you chose from is the list of PPC terms people are using to rank for your business. You can check that data for any URL, assuming they are advertisinig via PPC on Google. From image above, you can see that OliveGarden appears to be targeting the term ‘chilis gift card’

·    SpyFu is super easy to use, and free as you figure it out. I highly recommend it.

·    Take all the keywords you have, from organic research as per steps 1&2.

·    Take the terms you have gathered in excess left over from your IA and copy team for SEO site plan.

·    Take the terms you found from PPC competitive insights and run them through the keyword research tools to get variations.

·    Make a final trim and split the keywords into a usable, adgroup and keyword targeted PPC campaign.

Note on brands targeting other brands… Some brands have ‘gentleman deals’ not to target other competitor brand names in the PPC results to keep PPC costs down. If they work, it is of enormous benefit to all brands concerned.

In most cases this is not the case. HOWEVER, my advice is to type your brand and variations of it into Google and see who’s advertising in the paid results via SpyFu (or more advanced AdGooroo – there are a huge number of software solutions out there, I personally know these two and recommend them both).

Contact them and request a mutual cease and desist on brand name terms. If they are amenable, get a document from both/all parties listing the brand name terms they want kept ‘free’. Review all terms individually and then collectively and form a ‘brand exclusive’ partnership. As soon as you can get something off the ground, the collective is likely to have the combined power to absorb new *brand stealers*, or negate their opportunity to capitalize on your grouped name terms.

Reputation Management Spying

·    If you know what initiatives your online competition is engaging in, or what issues are befalling them you can combat them immediately via PPC initiatives, and long term via SEO.

·    For example; if a competitors is having financial issues, or board in-fighting, if they are closing stores or opening new ones, you can be among the first to know via reputation monitoring and management.

·    You can use the information to create targeted PPC campaigns, and create long term competitive, combative, or superior pages. You can use the information to create a new niche, extend a niche, or as an idea for your own product or service development. The possibilities are virtually limitless.

·    A great free tool is Google Alerts. Easy to set up, and easy to monitor. Whatever ‘term’ or ‘brand’ you enter will be monitored and emailed to you if you choose it to be an ‘alert’ any time that ‘term’ is included in a Google news, web, blog or other result.

·    Two superb paid for tools include TruCast  (a social media and blog monitoring solution from VisibleTechnologies) and TrakUr (Google Alert on steroids according to it’s creators).

Conclusion:

Monitor your competition online and off. See what they are doing and strategize reactively, and proactively depending on what you find!

This post is going to try to make it easy and fun for SEO’s to inform clients as to why SEO – and particularly keyword research - is important to their online presence, rankings and exposure.

We have posts with additional resources for you to review regarding keyword research, as well as  on integrating SEO effectively and efficiently into a new website, as well as into an existing website if you have a little extra time

Back to: Initiating the Uninitiated into the Possibilities of SEO

1. Spiders require theme identification to apply relevance

*** (Please see SEOmoz for thanks below)

2. Is the key theme obvious?

3. Why is the key theme important?

4. But WHY are keywords that important?

Spiders crawl webpages looking for html text based relevance of a theme. If they see the same topical reference consistently throughout the page, they will apply onpage relevance.

Really? Where is that on my page?

5. So, why can’t I just stuff my pages full of keywords? …And what is Off-page SEO?

6. How do I handle off-page SEO?

7. What happens if I ignore SEO?

Well, apart from the liklihood of poorly conceived IA, design and development; less than optimal CMS solutions; and no one finding you, there are some basic issues you might face:

*The Googlorithm image used in this blog post is courtesy of Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz. He understands that my interpretive design skills suck, that I love his blog, & that I think SEOmoz rocks. This is not an ad plug, this is my opinion

If you don’t have a PRO membership, come to SEMCanada.org 2008 in Calgary on the 3rd and 4th September and SEOmoz will give you a 3 month free trial! If you are already an SEOmoz member and want to come, we are offering a 25% discount to PRO-Members! Jane is speaking, as are a number of SEO uber-gurus, and we’d love for you to join us!

One of David Ogilvy’s quotations speaks very well to the idea of focusing on search query language and utilizing it in your web site to answer search query intent:

“If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think.”

A quotation by John Ilhan identifies that in developing your offering, you need to answer the intent of your primary users, not provide them with information you think they might want:

“This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back.”

Encouraging the use of search query language to answer search query intent is often more of a battle than many might assume. We’ll illustrate this with a hypothetical example:

He sells used cars, but will not have either term used on his website. Let’s think about a few terms he may be missing out on; ‘used BMW dealership Denver’, ‘luxury second hand cars Denver’, ‘used Audi car sales Denver’ and on and on. (Incidentally, most people looking for a car online, new or used, will refine their search with some geographical boundary).

For the sake of expedience, let’s just look at a few very generic terms and the number of times they were searched. We’ll use WordTracker for this portion of the illustration.

First we’ll look at ‘used car dealer’ query language based searches:

Now let’s look at ‘preowned automobiles’ and ‘pre-owned automobiles’…

Hmm… puzzling that. What about just ‘preowned’ and ‘pre-owned’?

Ah hah! So there we have ‘preowned cars’ at the top which outstrips our more focused ‘used car dealer’ from above 54 to 27. Let’s see what happens when we try for ‘preowned car dealer’…

*sigh*… OK.

And then just because we can, what happens if we just go for the generic ‘used cars’ and compare it to the 54 searches we got for ‘preowned cars’…

Ahhh… and yet Mr. Beemer is not interested. His opinion on what people should be looking for when they want to find ‘his type of offering’ (which very few people know about as the rest of his marketing is just as oblivious) is outweighing the data. The result is that he is simply not going to rank for any term that might conceivably give him decent exposure in the SERPS apart from extremely focused searches by a very low volume of equally ‘carrot-up-the-ass’ type people.

Moving on now to Search Query Intent.

Andrei Broder identified three primary types of search query intent in his ‘A Taxonomy of Web Search’ including:

• navigational intent
  • looking for a particular site which may result in further interaction;
    • e.g. ‘westjet’,
• informational intent
  • broad investigative search requiring no further interaction;
    • e.g. ‘toddler weaning tips’, and
• transactional intent
  • specific search to achieve a web-based objective that requires full website interaction;
    • e.g. ‘Yellow pages’.

During the initial stages of the web development project when SEO and IA (information architecture) get together to work on the site plan, part of the best practice approach is to sub-divide the identified and topically grouped search query language keywords into each of these primary search query intent categories. Not only will this facilitate a more logical and defined approach to the rest of the web project development team, it will make the site more appropriate and usable in terms of structure and navigation.

By categorizing your keyphrases in this manner and structuring the rest of your development based on these groupings, it is highly probable that both your relevant click through rates and conversions will also increase. The hypothesis behind this two-fold probability conjecture is based first on the fact that, by nature of the query language utilized, searchers will (hopefully) be presented with a page in the SERPS that speaks best to their actual intent. The more a page answers search query intent, the more likely the user is to click on it. The second part of the conjecture, the conversion, is yet more hypothetical in that it requires that the design, speed, content and imagery as well as path to conversion is clear, logical and easily facilitated.

The use of effective search query language in the onpage elements of your site structure will also facilitate the development of a high quality backlink network. The more usable and logical your site and the more your pages reflect both search query language and answer intent, the more likely you are to encourage self-propagating inlinks, and to gain requested backlinks especially for deeper pages.

While keyword research and the effective deciphering of intent is vital, neither will achieve very much in terms of conversions if the site design, content and usability are of poor quality.

Here’s a SEMI definition of what keyword research is:

‘SEO keyword research is the process of researching your online target market’s search behaviors, patterns and interests. It provides the means for identifying opportunities and markets that may have been overlooked. SEO keyword research provides the basis for ensuring the effective and consistent placement of a web site in the SERPs resulting in long term ROI.’

Back to basics

• If a company can figure out what terms its target market is actually using to find its product or service offering online, it is providing itself with an automatic competitive advantage.
• By supporting and consolidating its brand name with these defining search terms, the company will increase its online brand awareness and exposure (and thus CTR).
• By researching its competitors a business can see what terms they may have identified as optimal. The business than then choose to compete, or switch its focus to longer terms or slightly more niche oriented terms which are more specifically relevant to their market as and if required. These decisions will be based on knowledge, not guesswork, and that is vital to online success.
• By identifying the clouds around each primary term, the business can validate the relevance of each primary term identified. Clouds of terms can open up new opportunities. For example; kitchen sinks are searched far more frequently that bathroom sinks, and Kohler sinks are the top brand name searched. If a business sell sinks but not Kohler sinks, based on the research they may want to consider expanding their product line and focusing more of their advertising on kitchen sinks instead of bathroom sinks.

Next Steps
1. Keyword Discovery

• Make a list of the terms you think are important to your business, and the terms your colleagues think are important. Speak to marketing, finance, operations and HR. You might be surprised by the variety and difference in perceived term relevancy focus. Make a list.
• Speak to your non-work friends, and your family (they are likely to be far more subjective – and insights can be astonishing). Add to your list.
• Run this list through WordTracker, Trellian’s Keyword Discovery, WebCEO, Google or numerous other keyword research tools which you can search for and find online. Note search volumes and competitor numbers where possible.
• Check out the clouds of terms provided by Yahoo! Search Assist, Google Search Suggest, MSN Search Funnels, MSN Consumer Detection (and the other MSN AdCenter labs Tools). 
• Utilize Google Trends and enter a few terms to see what’s really searched.

2. Competitor Identification

• Identify your online competitors by searching on the terms you have determined to be your primary target keywords. Look at the title tags for their primary pages.
• Identify your real competitors title tags as above (if you are Kohler, Moen is a real competitor; if you are a plumber in Calgary, another plumber in Calgary is a real competitor). Your ‘real’ and ‘online’ competitors may differ in scope, range and primary offering or deliverable.

3. Keyword Selection

• Make a final list of the primary keywords and extended keywords identified and noted from the above steps. Search on these terms in Google and see how many results are returned. At the same time provide your subjective opinion on how well optimized each of the top five results are.
• Start knocking out terms, and start ticking terms as ‘hard, key and worth the effort’, ‘hard and key but not worth the effort’, ‘hard but not key’, ‘mediocre effort but key’, ‘mediocre effort and not key’, etc. For example, if you are in travel, ‘hotels and resorts’ might be highly relevant to your business, but probably impossible to get as a small to medium size player.
• Take your final list of ‘key’ terms and re-evaluate. Speak to colleagues, speak to your marketing department. Marketing efforts are a ‘product’ on their own. Treat them as such. I strongly recommend Seth Godin’s book, ‘Meatball Sunday’s’.

4. Integrating Selected Keywords

• Conduct an SEO Audit of your existing site and apply best practice SEO. Or simply start your redesign by providing the words to IA.

SELECTED INDEPENDENT RESOURCE: Keyword Research by Stoney deGeyter