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Keyword Research Basics for SEO
By Dave Davies (c) 2010

I've said it before and I'll say it again... there is no more
important step in the SEO process than keyword research. One
could make a compelling argument for link building or for
architecture or for copywriting but at the end of the day -
ranking highly for keywords that either don't convert or which
you close up shop waiting to rank for isn't going to help too
terribly much so in my opinion - I'd put keyword research
higher in importance. In fact, when I'm building affiliate
sites my first step is to look up keywords and competition
levels - then I look into products and websites and this method
has worked very well indeed. It insures that I choose keywords
that will both convert and that I can rank for in a period of
time and with an effort level that matches the return.

So - if you're doing keyword research, where should you begin?
Unless you're an affiliate marketer you already have a product
and since you're the target audience of this article - I'm
going to assume that's the case. For the purpose of this
article I'm going to pick a hobby of mine and also an area
where I don't have a client and imagine I'm doing keyword
research for the imaginary online downhill mountain biking
store, DH Mountain Bikes.

So Where To Begin ...

The first thing one needs to do is try to think up all the
possible phrases that might apply. I call this my seed list...
it's the list of phrases that my research starts with and is
generally based on brainstorming. In this case the list would
be:

downhill mountain bike
dh mountain bike
mountain bike

The keyword tool I generally use first is Google's keyword
suggestion tool. There are other great tools but I've found
Google's tool to be as accurate as any other, the price is
definitely right (free), and they're very good about providing
the information required to know just how wrong the data is if
you know where to look. So let's do just that.

Before we begin you'll need to head over to Google's keyword
tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.
In the top left (for now) you'll see a link to a beta version
of the tool. Click on the link and you'll be at the new version
of the tool which will provide you easy access to much more
information - as long as you know what to look for. So let's
begin with our three seed phrases.

When you see the list you'll first have to know what the
numbers are. This tool is a tool designed for AdWords and the
default number is the Broad match which means it includes every
phrase with the term. For example, the term "mountain bike" has
a broad match total of 2,740,000 which will include "downhill
mountain bike", "mountain bike parts", "kona mountain bike",
etc. etc.

What we want to know is how many searches are for "mountain
bike". Down the left-hand side you'll see a set of check boxes.
Deselect "Broad" and select "Exact" and you'll get the Exact
match numbers - the number of searches for the exact phrase.
You'll quickly see that 2,740,000 drop to 450,000. This is
how many people searched the GOOGLE SEARCH NETWORK for "mountain
bike". Why is this in caps – because it's so commonly
misunderstood that I definitely want your attention brought to
it. This isn't the number of searches on Google.com - it's the
number of searches on all sites whose search is powered by
Google. From YouTube to Beanstalk's blog search - it's all in
there so the data starts to get skewed from the start. Then
let's add in all the automated queries from rank-checking
tools and just manual searches from you and your competitors
and the data gets further skewed. This skewing will exist in
all data - the thing I like about using Google is that at least
we know more about what's adjusting the data.

OK - so from there we need to organize the data into a more
useful set of information. To do this one needs to understand
the columns of data. The first column is the keyword, the
second you'll see is a link to the term on Google Insights.
We'll get into this later. The next is Global Monthly Searches
- this is the average number of searches/mo. worldwide. This
can be helpful in some industries but in ours - I'm only
concerned with the US market which is where my imaginary store
ships to so I'm more interested in the next column Local
Monthly Searches which is the number of searches in the US (or
whatever region I've specified when entering my keyword
phrases). This is the data I'm interested in. The last column
is the search trend. This is extremely important but often
overlooked. It is a column that wasn't visible by default in
the old/current version.

OK - let's organize our data by search volume. Click on the
"Local Monthly Searches" and you'll see the keywords order by
descending search volume. With this data in front of me I then
typically look over to the Trend data to see what I can find
there. In our case we're going to see an increase in search
volume in the spring and summer. This make sense of course.
Think of your industry and see if the trends reflect what makes
sense.

I'm also looking for anomalies. Often I'll see phrases that
jump for a single month. One has to know that unless there was
a news story or other event that would spark interest in a
single term or brand - a tool or some other such incident is
likely falsifying the data. You need to look at these trends
and see if they make sense. If not - you need to either test
the phrases with PPC or just skip over them and select different
phrases. There's little worse as an SEO than focusing energies
on a phrase only to find that the search volume is not what was
expected based on the estimates delivered.

So now what?

So what do you do once you've filtered your data down to just
what you're interested in looking into competition levels on.
Well - the first thing I do is to look to the trends to see if
there are any phrases that obviously need to be filtered out.
In this case there really aren't any high in the search volume
column. So the only thing left is to look at the competition
levels to see what makes sense. For our purposes we'll be
dividing the list and research into two categories:

Major phrases – We need to decide what the long-term goals are
going to be and the targets for the main pages. These will be
the totally generic phrases such as "mountain bike" and
"downhill mountain bike" as well as brand or type specific
phrases such as "specialized mountain bike" and "full suspension
mountain bike".

Longtail phrases - We also need to look into the types of
longtail phrases we're going to want to target. In this case I
know I'll want to target specific parts which will require new
research. I will spare you the details there, but I'll end up
with specific models of components such as "hayes mx2". You
don't need to know what that is  - you need to know the makes
and models in your industry (or other longatil opportunities
such as "new york hotel with jacuzzi", etc.)

I generally would gather together a list of 15 or 20 major
phrases and 50 or 60 longtail phrases and would then head into
the competition analysis to determine which phrases to move
forward with.

And next week I'll have that article for you...
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Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization,
Inc. (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/) On top of providing
performance-based organic SEO services, consulting, training and
link building - Dave enjoys writing and blogging about SEO as
well as affiliate marketing, including his upcoming site on
downhill mountain bikes (http://www.dhmountainbikes.com/) and
the hills they're built for.
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