How to narrow down and refine your keyword list
Ok, you’ve checked out the competition and did your research. You know what keywords are being searched on and how many sites out there are currently optimizing for those words (KEI).
KEI - explained
The KEI is a ratio of the number of searches for a keyword with the number of search results.
So, if the keyword ‘web design‘ is searched 4000 times per day, and there are 1 million results for that keyword, the KEI is .004. The lower the KEI, the harder it will be to become well placed with that term - there is EXTREME competition for that keyword.
Ideally, you want a high KEI, which will mean it is easier to rank high on that keyword. But unfortunately, it isn’t that simple; there are a lot of things to consider:
1. Where did you start? It’s much easier to get from number 50,000 to number 200 than it is to get from number 25 to number 1.
2. Comparision shopping? Not all keywords are created equally, but the KEI compares them as if they are. Also, the competition may be extremely skilled at SEO and may be tough to knock down from their high positions.
Get your keyword list together
After you’ve checked out and considered the KEI of your keyword list, there are some other things to consider.
1. Market saturation: some terms are very general (such as HOSTING, WEB DESIGN, etc.). With more sophisticated users, it is possible to focus in closer on keywords, making it easier to achieve good results and quite possibly improving your ROI.
For example, let’s say you optimize for the keyword ‘web design’ and reach the lofty #1 position. Whenever a user types in ‘web design’ your web site comes up and they click on it. This results in over 2000 unique visitors per day, but rarely a sale. Why? Because it’s possible that when someone was searching for ‘web design’ they were looking for:
- Web design schools
- Tips on how to improve their web design skills
- Web design jobs
- Web design ideas
- Web design widgets
Need I go on?
The key to a good ROI is targeting your keywords just enough so that the visitor finds what they are looking for - YOU!
Some suggestions:
1. Think regional: Are you marketing a service to a local area? Put those words into your keywords. Example: web design in washington, web design in spokane. These are both regionally specific keywords that will narrow the focus of your search and most likely, bring in visitors that are looking for your services.
2. Think detailed: Go a little bit deeper into the mind of the search engine user and try to determine what they would type in to find your web site. If they’re looking for a hosting company, would they type in just ‘hosting’? Unlikely. Probably they would tag on an adjective that would reflect exactly what they’re looking for:
- cheap hosting
- reliable hosting
- windows hosting
Etc.
Research research research - did I mention research?
Figuring out the right keywords isn’t a quick process. Once you focus in a bit from your first list of words, you’ll need to check the KEI on the new, targeted words, as well. From there, you should get a list of keywords that are on their way to working for your web site!
Further refining your keyword list.