Keyword Research

An integral part of the research we provide is to help identify the best possible keywords to target with your online marketing campaigns. Intelligent keyword choice is essential for reaching the right audience. We will take your existing keyword list and expand the list to include many more keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business. We will then recommend keywords to target based on keyword search frequency and relevance to your website.

The chosen keywords must satisfy two major criteria: relevancy and popularity. Relevant keywords include those that are both brand- and product-related. Popularity is determined by using a set of proprietary tools. Our SEO strategists select keywords using a combination of the following processes (or all of them, when possible):

• Research of the client and competitor sites. Beyond looking just for the meta keywords tab, keep a close eye on phrases being used in page titles, header tags, and alt attributes.
• Information gathering sessions with the client. If we’re designing or redesigning a Web site, the creative and marketing teams have often discussed and documented much of the desired product or service focus.
• Careful review of analytics data.
• Analysis of paid search impression and conversion volume data. This is the most valuable information you can get for predicting volume. If a client has been running a large-budget campaign, get that impression data. However one word to the wise: don’t confuse “broad match” impressions with exact match, which are more valuable in this case.
• Analysis of inbound link anchor text to client and competitor sites.
• Evaluation of Forrester research data around the industry or product lines.
• Evaluation of social sites. Looking for competitor or industry pages within social communities such as MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn can yield additional keywords through the analysis of consumer interaction with these portals.
• Evaluation of trending tools, e.g., Google Trends, Quantcast, and now likely Google’s new Ad Planner. Hitwise is helpful if the client has a seat license, as well as Nielsen and comScore marketer data. These tools all provide additional insight into the demographics and Web habits of target demographics. Truly enterprise level keyword researchers will take the time to understand these behaviors in order to find other sites and keywords that may be relevant by one or two degrees of separation.
• Client and agency collaboration see opportunities from inside and outside of the box.

Once a good starter list is established, use as many of the above tools as possible when you’re ready to assign keywords to pages, which is an entire process on its own. Working together on the above methods to choose keywords. Otherwise, you may end up with a lot of number one rankings and no traffic to show for it.