Part 1 of 3 - Keyword Evaluation

In Search Engine Marketing, a keyword is a phrase (or occasionally a single word) that individuals use when performing searches on Search Engines to find information on a particular subject. In order for your website listing to be displayed for those keyword searches that are relevant to your site – your site must actually contain the keywords used in the search query and contain substantial content about those keywords. Using algorithms, the Search Engines evaluate your web site for keywords, content and other factors to determine where your website listing will rank on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Successful Keywords
When we are working with a website, we check to ensure that it contains all the relevant keywords and content required for strong Search Engine visibility. Often we discover that the website is not using the keywords that their potential customers are using as search queries. There can be a disconnect between what keywords you think your customers should be using to search and what they are really using. Fortunately, there are methods for determining what keywords are being used by searchers and how frequently. The free Yahoo ! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) Keyword Selector Tool is the easiest and most readily available. This handy tool will show you how often a keyword was searched for in the previous month. It also displays how many times the keyword was searched for in conjunction with other keywords.

Keyword Relevancy is Essential
In order for keywords to be of value to your website, they first and foremost must be relevant to the content of your website. It requires a bit of firmness to keep keywords relevant. It can be tempting to tell yourself that if you bring your target audience to your site, using a non-relevant term, that your audience will forget what they were searching for and fall in love with your products. However, it is a far more effective and proven method of Search Engine Marketing to provide your potential customers with the exact information they requested in their search.

Your search for relevant keywords does not end once you have identified all the keywords you can. You must also review those keywords and identify the ones that you should invest your company resources in. This investment will involve a number of things, from optimizing your existing content and writing new content to proper placement of keywords in <title> and <meta> tags. In Part 2 of this series we will be reviewing the ‘follow through’ (Search Engine Optimization) necessary to get your chosen keywords working for you. In Part 3 we will review the proper use of <title> and <meta> tags.

“...In order for keywords to be of value to your website – they first and foremost must be relevant to the content of your website.”

Low Count and Broad Keywords
Your keywords must garner enough search activity to be of value to you, it must be achievable and desirable to get your website in the top 10 organic listings for these keywords.

Keywords need to be used by your target audience frequently enough to warrant your attention. If you get your website to the top 10 organic listings, you can still only anticipate getting a small portion of the total searches (3%-6% on average). This means if a low count keyword has only has 100 searches per month – you may only get 3 to 6 visits to your website per month for all your efforts. Depending on your total target audience size, website performance and business model, the number of searches per month at which point a keyword will be of value to your company will vary.

Often broad keywords (keywords that have meanings other than your specific keyword needs) will have large counts, but there will be a number of strong websites already well positioned for these keywords and they will be used by a large number of searchers who are not interested in your products/services. For example, if you manufacture software for restaurants that includes management, pos (point of sale), menu, accounting, and inventory features then you would do well to consider the following keywords.

While keywords such as

are too broad – meaning that too few of the searchers using these keywords are in fact looking for your products. The high level of resources required to compete for these two keywords would be unlikely to result in a profit, while the efforts required for the more focused restaurant software keywords are more likely to result in profit and success.

Summary

• Measure the actual usage of each keyword before investing your resources in positioning for that keyword.

• Make sure each keyword is relevant to your website content.

• Avoid keywords with low counts or that are too broad in nature to generate profit for your firm.

Successful Search Engine Marketing requires not only keyword evaluation, it requires follow through as will be covered in Parts 2 and 3 of this series.