How To Find The Right Keywords To Target

Intro

Finding the right keywords to target is the most important part of your campaign and it should be the first thing you do. Daniel Tannebaum from TechNational explains that time should be taken to find the right keywords and that includes speaking to your client, looking at competitors, existing Adwords campaigns and reviewing this regularly to achieve results.

Choosing Your Keywords

Keywords are simply the phrases that people type in when searching on Google or Bing and can be just one or two words or even an entire question or phrase.

Whilst it is estimated that more than 80% of search queries are unique because of the way the human mind works, there are usually common words that come in the search and creating a good list of 30 or 50 keywords or phrases to target is a good starting point.

On the one side, you have ‘short tail keywords’ which are usually just one or two words, but they have huge search volumes. For instance, ‘credit cards,’ ‘electric boilers’ or ‘car insurance.’ These words will be super competitive, but gaining a top position will result in huge traffic and possibly income.

On the other side, you have ‘long tail keywords’ which consist of lots of words and are typically questions and phrases. For example, “a formal red dress in size 7” or “a 3 detached bedroom house with a garden near me.” Whilst the phrases are more specific, they may not have as many people searching for them, but they may be easier to rank for and be more likely to result in a sale.

When working for a client or your own website, you might take an approach to do a mix of short tail and long tail, or maybe just the short tail and put all your eggs into ranking for one big word. Or perhaps you want to rank for thousands and thousands of phrases and generate traffic this way - all methods are viable.

Find The Keywords Using Tools

There are numerous ways to find the keywords list that you should be targeting with Ranktracker keyword finder the most well-known. If you have not used them before, consider using a free trial to get a feel.

Firstly, the tools will show you everything that you currently for (if anything) and this will be a good starting point. You may see some opportunities where you are on page 2 or 3 already and have an opportunity to progress.

You can use their search tools to suggest keywords and phrases and it will show the search volumes in each country you are looking to target. These can be easily selected and transferred into an Excel spreadsheet for your reporting.

In addition, you can place your final list of keywords into their position tracking and monitor their progress daily.

Getting Feedback From Your Client or Any Partners

“One big flaw of many agencies is that they do not get enough feedback or early advice from their clients,” explains Justine Gray of tech insights website, TrendingImpact.com.

“Speaking to the clients or partners you work with will give you good insight into the type of phrases that people search for, ask for and also convert into real sales, not just traffic. SEO is a means to benefiting the bottomline, so pinpointing which traffic enquiries leads to revenue is vital.”

“You can also get some feedback from their actual clients in terms of what questions they ask the brand and what they look for when searching for a particular product or service. In short, do not take keyword searches for granted, you must do your homework.”

“In some cases, you may find some really alternative words that target the same kind of customers but are far less competitive - and are a faster and just as effective way to achieve your overall sales goals.”

Looking At An Existing Adwords Campaigns

It can be beneficial if your client or your own site has been using PPC through Google Adwords or Bing Ads. The reports can give a good indication into what kind of searches get the most clicks and sales, and if they are broad, exact or phrase match.

Importantly, the reports may show that some keywords get a huge amount of impressions and are far more popular than the likes of SEMrush or AHrefs suggest, giving you more insight than you expect.

Track Your Keywords and Review Your List Regularly

You should begin to track your keywords and their progress immediately, with Ranktracker as my tracking tools of choice.

Being able to monitor the keywords on a daily basis is vital and being able to show growth over the case of 1, 3 or 6 months is of paramount importance to the client and the ongoing relationship.

Plus, it is essential to look back and review the keywords and ensure that you are focusing on the right ones. The client may find that they are not getting sales despite owning top positions or that their business focus has changed in recent weeks and they want to drive some different services or products during the seasonal time.

Constantly referring back to your keywords and finding the real gems is your key to SEO success.