We may all know that thorough keyword research underpins the whole foundation on which all online traffic generation is based. But how do we separate the wheat from the chaff – the keywords that deliver quality not just quantity, customers not just visitors?
Key points
Always spread your keyword net wide at the start of any project. Start with a generic term like ‘calendars’ or ‘furniture’ and see what Wordtracker’s Keyword Universe will bring up.
Set up an AdWords campaign using the keywords you’ve generated. A short test campaign will give you additional information about each of your keywords.
Always monitor your results using analytics. Look for keywords that bring you real sales, not just traffic. Then you can go back to Wordtracker and dig for more of the same.
We may all know that thorough keyword research underpins the whole foundation on which all online traffic generation is based. But how do we separate the wheat from the chaff – the keywords that deliver quality not just quantity, customers not just visitors?
My answer is to use a combination of Wordtracker, Google Adwords and web analytics.
Let me take you through the process I use. I recently took on a new client that sells standard and personalised calendars online, so I’ll use this as my example.
A few definitions
Keyword – either a single word or phrase that is used in a search.
Customers – any visitor who fulfils the purpose of my website. For an ecommerce site this will be sales. For a site whose main purpose is to build a subscription list, then it will be arrival at the thank you page following a successful submission of the sign up form. Different sites will have different ways of defining a customer, and in some cases may define customers in more than one way, for example signed up to the newsletter or bought a product.
Most valued visitor - any visitor that fits the profile of those likely to convert into customers, and these are the ones I am targeting. Suffice it to say, you cannot define your most valued traffic unless you have defined what it is you want them to do!
I want conversions, not rankings. A number 1 ranking for a keyword that doesn’t deliver customers may be good for the ego, but doesn’t help the bank balance. Even worse is buying pay per click traffic for keywords that don’t convert, this feeds the ego and depletes the bank balance.
The initial trawl
At the start of my keyword research, I always like to spread my net wide and then hone the results down to the best keywords for my site.
Wordtracker’s Keyword Universe is always my first port of call. Starting with the very generic term ‘calendars’ provides a wealth of ideas, everything from ‘cat calendars’ to ‘promotional calendars’ to ‘nude calendars’. Obviously this market is very wide so I will make an initial decision about which part of the market I am interested in. I am going to keep to the mainstream family and business market and ignore everything else. Even so I already have a sizeable list of possible keywords, but which are the ones that will deliver customers?
To keep things simple, I have selected just 12 keywords from the list that Wordtracker has generated. These are shown in Fig 1, a screen shot from Wordtracker’s Keyword Universe. ‘personalized calendars’ is an American spelling so I shall use ‘personalised calendars’ when working in the UK market.
