SEO Demystified: Keyword Strategy

In my last post, Intro to SEO Demystified, I defined SEO and introduced the steps or phases of a typical SEO campaign. Today, I want to delve into the first one — keyword strategy. As I stated at the outset, this isn’t intended to be an in-depth look, but more of a primer to help you make informed decisions and take the mystique out of what some see as a confusing, even dubious, aspect of the Web world.

Keyword Strategy

First and foremost to any SEO campaign is the research and analysis required to arrive at a solid set of keywords and phrases that you will target in your campaign. This is not an exact science, though a seasoned SEO professional will not only have good tools, but also a keen sense for what will work and what will prove less efficient.

Everything else you do flows out of the decisions you make during this step. Its importance cannot be overstated.

Be aware of SEO companies that guarantee top keyword placement. Oftentimes, the keywords are so obscure that even with top placement, you will not see any additional traffic because they are not words or phrases people are searching on.

A good SEO company will do a couple of things as part of the keyword strategy. First they will want to do a site analysis to see what technical or architectural aspects of your site may need to be tweaked for optimal search engine friendliness and to determine your current keyword phrases and modifiers, based on use and density. Second they will work closely with you through several steps of creating your keyword list. They may ask you to come up with an initial seed list, but be prepared to answer questions about your industry and competition. In the end, you will have keyword phrases, terms and themes that you’ll use for the other phases of the SEO campaign. Whatever you do, please don’t skimp here. Your participation and thoughtful reflection are crucial to the success of this step.

What if I want to do this myself?

Even if you decide to strike out on your own to try SEO, consider hiring a consultant to help you know what to do and what tools are available (free or subscription-based). I suggest this route because even the initial step of keyword research can be daunting. For example, keyword research involves looking at competing sites, perusing forums and newsgroups and utilizing search engine keyword suggestion tools.

But the final list of keywords is only part of the equation. You need them sorted according to the proper metrics such as popularity, relevance and competition. There are many tools out there, and some work better than others. Having a relationship with a trusted SEO consultant is an invaluable way to “apprentice” during your first campaign.

That said, it has been my experience that most organizations simply do not have the internal resources with the necessary skills to effectively go with this approach. A couple of years ago, a number of the non-profit organizations I served wanted to pursue SEO, but they didn’t have the budget. So I created a tutorial that gave step-by-step instructions on how to optimize their site. I gave them to several folks and as far as I know, not one organization ever utilized it.

More about Metrics

Be mindful of using too broad or too narrow keywords or keyword phrases. Very broad and popular keywords such as coffee will have fierce competition and companies pay big money to have their sites rank high for those. Very narrow keywords are less likely to be searched on. You may rank number two with a niche phrase but only have 10 people a month searching on that term. It’s important to understand and weigh the balance between value and competition. Then you can effectively evaluate search terms that are too competitive and ones that may be good opportunities. There are other pieces that come into play here such as a competitor’s external profile, on-page factors and any Pay-per click (PPC) campaign they may be doing.

In other words, you need to know how much effort has been put into their in-bound link strategy, how they have developed dedicated landing pages to targeted search terms, how well they have optimized their site for these terms and what sort of bidding and money has been invested for PPC campaigns. A good SEO consultant can provide a pretty accurate lay of the land, though it’s unlikely they’ll be able to tell you dollar amounts for any PPC campaign.

Keyword research and metrics is a very deep topic and there is no way to cover all aspects and stay within the stated bounds of this article. I only touched on competition here. Relevance and weighted popularity are just as important.

Sum it up in three words

I think it was 1992 when the Atlanta Braves went worst-to-first and won the division championship. I’ll never forget Otis Nixon’s comment in the excitement of the win. He said, “I can sum it up in three words; it don’t get no better than this.”

Well, I must confess that I’m beginning to sense the same thing happening to me. My goal was to write a couple of brief posts to give you a high level understanding of SEO. I’m on my second and so far I’ve only managed to define it and talk briefly about one of 6 steps. Like Otis, in the excitement of the moment I didn’t realize how many words it would take.

But the truth is that SEO requires a good grasp of the basics, an understanding of the tools involved and how to effectively use them. Perhaps most intangible and elusive of all, a seasoned SEO consultant will have a feel for search engine trends and how changes in a major player’s algorithms affect the way an SEO campaign should be approached. It’s the last characteristic that separates the veterans from the rest.

If I try to keep it too brief, I will not give you a good foundation. So that’s all the apology I’ll offer. My next installment will address Site Design and Structure. You can have the best keyword strategy on the planet, but if search engines cannot crawl your site, then you won’t get indexed. That means you won’t show up on the search results page. So stay tuned.