Keyword ResearchFor SEO & Content Marketing

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@ShawnBarrington @SEOcom

What Is Keyword Research?

What is Keyword Research

• Keyword research is performed to identify the keyword phrases that we will be targeting for your SEO and marketing campaigns.

• “Keyword research is one of the most important valuable and high return activities in the search marketing field. Ranking for the “right” keywords can make or break your website” – MOZ.com

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Purpose

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• Identify the right keyword phrases to increase rankings, traffic and ROI– Informational Keywords– Buyer Intent Keywords

• Define the ultimate goal of your website• Research keywords that describe the purpose

and goal of each page on your site.• Establish keyword/Topic focus• Unify company marketing goals.

Effects Of A Proper Keyword Research3 Main Effects of Proper Keyword Research

Increase In Organic Rankings

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Average Rankings at December 2011 – 88.29Keywords Driving Traffic - 984

Average Rankings January of 2013 – 7.23Keywords Driving Traffic- 1698

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Increase In Organic Traffic

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Leads/Sales From Organic Traffic

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Total Events in December 2011 – 0

Total Events In December 2012 - 230

Strategy Of Choosing Keywords

Things to consider when deciding on keywords to target.

Factors To Choosing A Keyword/Phrase

• Relevance To The Website– If you did this search does the website provide what

you are looking for? • Demand

– Are people searching for this term now?– What is the trend of this phrase?

• Difficulty– How much competition is there?

• Ranking– Where are you currently ranking for this term?

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2 Types of Keywords

1. Head Term Keywords– Short Phrases of 1-2 words

2. Long Tail Keywords– Typically phrases of 3–6 words

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Factors of Head Term Keywords

• Very Broad• Brand Awareness• Boost in traffic for website• Low Conversion• Best when mapped to home page of a

Website• Harder to rank for

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Factors of Long Tail Keywords

• Descriptive Phrases of products and services.• Best when mapped to a deeper page on the

site.• Conversion for these terms are much higher.• Easier to rank• Search Engines are evolving and are relying

more on long tail keywords over exact match head term keywords, to determine relevance of sites on different topics.

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User Intent Keywords

• Informational Keywords• Buying Keywords

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Informational Keywords

• Broad Phrases that imply research, or that contain questions or phrases such as:– “How”, “What”, “Why“, “Best”, “Reviews”, etc. – Examples:

• SEO• What is SEO• Shoes• Steel Buildings• How to build a Steel Building

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Buying Keywords

• Specific long tail keywords that contain things like part/model numbers, or phrases such as: – “Purchase”, “Buy”, “Order”, “Cheap”, Etc.– Examples:

• SEO Services for Small Businesses• Steel buildings in Oregon for Churches• Pre-order Apple I-phone 6 Online• Purchase BYU Text Books online

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Abbreviations

• Be careful of going after abbreviations that can mean different things in different industries. – Examples

• CPE– Continuing Professional Education– Customer Premises Equipment– Canine Performance Events– Clinical Pastoral Education

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How To Do Keyword ResearchPutting the Theory In Action

Summary Of Steps

1. Identify Potential Keywords2. Group Like Terms Together3. Map Keywords To Relevant Pages

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Keyword IdentificationHow To Identify Potential Keywords

Keyword Identification

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• Build a initial list of keywords based on the website and its goals.– Start Building Your List by:

• Looking for possible keywords to target from your site structure– Heading Tags– Title Tags– Content On The Page– Internal links– Navigation menu– etc

• Look at Industry competitors sites and determine potential keywords based on their site.

• Find Similar Terms Using the Google AdWords Planner

Keyword Identification

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• Review Related Search Usage

Keyword Identification

• Review Keywords Driving Traffic In Analytics and webmaster tools if available.

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Keyword Identification

• Gather Search Volume / Expand Initial List– Paste terms in the Google AdWords Planner

https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home

• Using the “Exact Match” feature and checking the box for “search volume for like terms”.

• Use Keyword Suggestion tool to expand your list

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Keyword GroupingGrouping Like Terms

Keyword Grouping

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• Eliminate Keywords/Phrases that don’t apply or have low demand.

• Identify like terms that are valuable and support each other and group together.

• Analyze Searcher Intent and eliminate those that don’t apply– Informational vs Buyer

Keyword Grouping

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• Identify head (main) phrases • Identify tightly related mid-level (long tail)

phrases

Keyword MappingIdentifying Relevant Pages

Keyword Mapping

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Home Page

Category Pages

Sub-Category Pages

Product Pages

Keyword Mapping

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High Traffic - Head TermsExample: Steel Buildings

Long Tail Variations of Main KeywordsExample: Industrial Steel Buildings

Descriptive Long Tail VariationsExample: Industrial Steel Building Kits

Product Describing KeywordsExample: Industrial steel building kit 58234

Keyword Mapping

• The Idea in mapping keywords, is to map a given keyword/phrase to the deepest page with in the site, to the page that is the most relevant.

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Keyword Mapping

• What page is relevant for a what term?– Does the keyword describe the information found

on that page?• Look at current heading tags / URL Structure

– Do they include or could they be easily changed to include the main term for that page?

• What page does Google see as most relevant for that keyword?

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Keywords & Mapped URLs

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Keyword Research In ActionRubber Meets The Road

Questions

Contact Information

• Shawn Barrington• Google + • Twitter @ShawnBarrington• LinkedIn

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