- Don’t rely only on your gut to think of your keywords. Spend some time researching. I’ve shared a few free keyword research tools that you can use. You will be surprised at how often your gut is wrong.
- Though you will focus on your broadest terms in the big picture, do include a mix of long-tail (three words or longer, specific) phrases in your link building. You will see much faster results with long-tail words obviously, and will generate some traffic quicker than the time it will take you to move up in SERPs for the competitive broader terms. This could be ‘Benjamin Moore latex paint’ instead of ‘paint’, or this could be “best latex paints by the gallon”. Point your specific terms to their respective, already-optimized, internal page.
- The most popular terms, the ones that show the most traffic using your favorite keyword tools, are not always the best choices for your particular site for conversion. What items bring you the most profit? What items are less competitive where you can rank quickly? You may want to rank for “Purdy paintbrushes” because they are searched more, but your profit is highest on the cheap no-name brushes you offer “cheap wholesale paintbrushes’
- Which terms are the most clickable for your business? (clickable is spell-check highlighting as though it is not a word! perfectly good word to me!) It would be fantastic to rank highly for “adoption support groups” since the traffic is good and it is an attainable goal, and you do have a support group or two in your directory, but when your listing is displayed for your adoption directory, if the wording is not going to be compelling and all about that term (such as “comprehensive list of adoption and foster parents support groups”), then you will be skipped. High rankings do you less good if the listing is not clicked.
- Watch your AdWords results for ideas and trends, but keep in mind that you may not be getting clicks for important keywords just because your bid is lower on that term. Use the results, but use common sense as well. Same thing for your current organic traffic. We had a client that did not want to use a term because he had no traffic for that term. Well without the ranking, of course there is no traffic. It was an important term and we convinced him to include it.
- Choose words that stick, and drop words that don’t. If you are moving up for some words more quickly than others in your linking and SEO efforts, build on those first while you have the momentum.
Tags: keyword development, Keywords