In last week’s blog we gave some tips to AdWords beginners and in the article we discussed the importance of keyword selection, but only very briefly. It got us thinking and reminded us how often new SEO clients contact us with queries about their keyword selection. So it made sense for us to put together a blog that focused solely on the keyword selection process and hopefully we can introduce you to a few tools and amazing websites that will help you pick the most suitable keywords to advertise your business on.
Short-tail Vs. Long-tail keywords
When a new client signs up to our service, one of our jobs is to vet their keyword choices. The most common mistake our clients make are to select too broad, way too competitive search terms. On the flip side we sometimes see clients using exceptionally long-tailed keywords in the hope of avoiding the competition and reaching position 1 quickly, but this often results in low traffic levels and a low amount of conversions.
As an example, one of our clients worked as a plumber in Manchester so amongst his keywords were ‘Plumber’, ‘local plumber’, ‘plumbing’, and so forth. To SEO newbies and plumbers all around, it would make sense to use the keyword ‘Plumber’ as it does best describe what he is. However, when it comes to SEO and online marketing, it’s worth enlisting some more long-tail but still relevant keywords that better reflect your service. The plumber was based in Manchester, so it would have been preferable for him to select geo-targeted search terms such as ‘plumbing services in Manchester’. This would be more relevant to his service, more relevant to his website content, it would cut out the broader competition and therefore, his site would be more likely to rank high on Google and other search engines as a result.
Key Considerations
First and foremost, there are a few questions that you should ask yourself when trying to choose your keywords:
Location - If you’re services only cover a certain radius or you’re based in a specific city/ county, make sure you add these as extensions to your core keyword (as suggested in the aforementioned example)
Price - Whether your services are free, cheap, luxury and so on; these terms could help further elaborate your service/ products
Time - Question whether you need to make reference to time in your keyword too
Purpose & Intent - Including words such as ‘buy’, ‘sell’, ‘shop’, ‘find’ could further refine your search term and will make sure that your site appears when a searcher is actively looking for your product/ service
Keyword Planner tool
Google’s Keyword Planner is a great tool to use when researching your keyword selection. It’s only available to use in Google AdWords but it’s worth opening an AdWords account just to utilize it. Although the tool isn’t always 100% accurate, and for organic keywords some columns (such as estimated CPC) won’t be relevant, it’s great for providing insightful information about keyword search volume and it’s also good for inspiring themed keywords. All you have to do is type in the search term that you are thinking of using, what locations you wish to target, and it will hit back with a ton of suitable suggestions. Because it’s designed for AdWords, it will piece together the terms in ad-groups so you will get a clear insight into keyword concepts and it will also show you how competitive the term/s you’ve chosen are.
Google Instant
Google Instant is another great way to suss out popular and appropriate keywords. You may have noticed that when you search on Google, it tries to predict what you’re going to input - this is Google Instant. This little tool can help you discover commonly used but long tail keywords. If you type in your main keyword, for example ours would be SEO, see what comes up next to it immediately; it’ll give you an indication of what are the most commonly used phrases next to your main term. You can literally go through the alphabet doing this! As an example, if we type in ‘SEO a’, it predicts that we are going to type ‘SEO agency’, ‘SEO analysis’ or ‘SEO audit’ etc. These are terms we might not have considered using as keywords without seeing their popularity through Google Instant.
Ubersuggest.org
Ubersuggest.org is a fantastic website for helping you brainstorm keywords. Although it doesn’t give you information on the terms popularity like the Keyword Planner, it is extremely helpful when you’re experiencing brain block. Again, it’s a totally free site. Just type in your main keyword and a huge amount of associated terms will be bounced back.
Google Trends
Google Trends is simply a site built by Google to display their engine’s search trends and it can also be really helpful for SEO. If you type in your chosen keyword/s it will display how often that term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The information provided will inform you of the keyword’s popularity and it may also allow you to spot trends. For example, if some of your keywords are seasonal, such as garden furniture, it will display the time when the seasonal keywords are used and in which parts of the world.Social Media
Using social media sites can also give you an indication of the terms that are popular with your target market. Researching keywords using the hashtag tool and researching trends on social sites will also give you a better understanding of what your potential buyers like, want and search for.
Can you compete?
When we discuss keywords with our clients we always encourage them to use a mixture of short and long-tail keywords. The term ‘long-tail’ is often mistaken for meaning irrelevant, but it just means to extend your core keyword. That way you are able to compete with your largest competitors by trying to rank highly on search terms that are still popular and well used but not dominated by the biggest brands. For example, if you own a women’s clothing shop and want to advertise online, using the keyword ‘women’s clothing’ may not be wise because the top pages of Google are dominated by ASOS, New Look, Topshop, River Island and so on. So considering keywords outside of the core of your business is definitely worthwhile.
If you have made use of the sites and tools we have listed above, you should have a pretty extensive list of suitable keywords. Now it’s time to take a look at the brands/ businesses advertising on your favoured terms and assess whether you can compete. For example, does your site provide better content than those listed on page 1 & 2? Is your website of a higher quality? This is another way you can refine your keyword selection and work out how reasonable it would be for you to expect to gain page 1 rank.
In conclusion, we hope that the information we have provided will help you in your keyword selection process. One thing we have mentioned in previous blogs that have addressed SEO keywords, is that you must imagine yourself in your in your searchers shoes, which will help you establish whether your keywords are relevant. If you have any keyword concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Have a great day,
The Click Submit team
www.clicksubmit.co.uk
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