Contacuts

Keyword research


Keyword research is an essential part of search engine optimisation and one which, with a little time and effort, can pay great dividends in delivering targeted, converting traffic to your website.

Too many website owners and businesses dive in trying to rank highly for very competitive keyword terms when they should step back and look at their overall objectives.

Often it is better to consider what product or service you are offering and to whom. Then research and understand how people are searching for these products and services. For e-commerce sites it is good to understand the different research and purchase processes that consumers use in order to shortlist potential supplier websites.

Given the fragmented nature of media consumption today a consumer could use all or some of the following methods in order to refine their shopping list of potential supplier or destination websites

In most industries there can be a lot of jargon and terminology. This jargon may mean something to people in that industry but not necessarily to the consumers who are searching for your product or service. The terms you use to define your business offering may be far removed from the keyword phrases customers will.

Using free tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a great way of doing keyword research for your product set. It is also a great way of identifying targeted keyword phrases which are less competitive and where you stand a better chance if improving natural search rankings and lower cost PPC campaigns that convert.

It has been shown that the search terms used by consumers tend to become more targeted as people move along the path of purchase intent. Many consumers start their search with generic 1 or 2 word keywords then see what results are returned, check out a few sites, then go back to search adding additional keywords to narrow their search further.

It can be better to target more niche terms which have less competition but which are for services or products which more closely match yours. Tailoring your website pages to be in tune with these searchers can yield higher conversions.