A Best Practice Guide to Keyword Selection Management
Keywords speaking the customer's language
Offline and online businesses share one success rule: speaking the customers' language; i.e. saying those words which customers seek. As today's customer is spoilt by an ever increasing number of brand and service/product choices. The customer generally prefers to work with those companies/brands that take the effort to track his needs and communicate about those benefits that he or she seeks.
In the online medium, search engines are amongst the best custodians of the changing needs of our customers. The top 3 search engines attract the majority of web surfing customers as they share their prioritized needs through keywords / phrases inputted as search requests for getting the right answers/solutions. These keywords act as bridges between businesses and customers.
Smart marketers use keywords to attract prospects and convert them into loyal customers and brand ambassadors (as they persuade them to refer business details to their acquaintances). Successful web marketers engage customers by uncovering latent needs and important consumer behaviour trends / patterns from popular keyword research.
At times businesses get insights into launching new business services by studying popular keywords on competitions websites (which they have missed). Skillful use of the right keywords enables marketers to persuade web visitors to remain 'glued' to their web pages or even making them to return repeatedly in the hope of finding new 'need-satisfying' offers.
Keyword Research - Selecting the right keywords
Choosing the right keywords is an ongoing activity for any web-asset (website, landing page, microsites and PPC advertisements) as the targeted customers' needs are forever changing / evolving.
Keyword/phrase selection process can be broadly split into two phases - the first phase being researching keywords through internal brainstorming (amongst your web-marketing and product marketing staff; including key sales-staff from your vendors/resellers). Brainstorming or sharing of business insights generates a list of terms / phrases that are popularly used in your industry and also conveys key benefits of business offers. Use keywords on competitions' websites to generate a list of words that convey your unique business advantage.
You need to think like your priority customers - what words would they use to search for your kind of business offers? Also look at words that link people, projects, ideas, and your company. Thereafter use a thesaurus to develop a list of simple, easy-to-understand synonyms that can be easily incorporated into your web-content. For example if most tour operators are using the word 'discount' on their websites, you could simply announce your offer by using the word 'free' along with the relevant offer, without hurting your bottom-line.
The next stage involves using industry acclaimed web-tools/ resources to generate keyword suggestions with search estimates. Keyword suggestions are a set of words and phrases that are related to your website's offers and to your existing list of business keywords. Search estimates are the number of searches that a keyword/phrase attracts in a specific time-period i.e. one day /month/ ninety days/ year; and from a specific geographic region. As different search engines / keyword tracking tools use different sources to compile their data, you should consider these estimate figures as relative means of selecting keywords that are searched for more often.
Leading search engines - google, yahoo and msn have their own keyword search tools and there are also neutral web tools like word tracker that pull in data from several search engines.
There are both free and paid services that you could use to keep track of word usage patterns. Here are some popular services:
- Simple Search - delivers 'keyword matches' in any order, while separating uppercase and lowercase words
- Exact/Precise Search - only exact keywords are matched and this also separates uppercase and lowercase words.
- Compressed Search - this matches keywords in any given order; combining uppercase and lowercase words.
- Comprehensive Search - matches your keyword-query with wild cards ("li*t could match with "lightning and "little") and separates uppercase and lowercase words.
- Misspelling Search - gives a list of misspellings for the search term you input. This matches exact keywords and combines uppercase and lowercase words.
Some useful keyword reports are:
- Keywords Search Volume - displays the keyword, its related terms, search volume from last month, advertiser competition and match types.
- Cost and PPC Ad Position Estimates - selected keyword's estimated average cost per click and its estimated ad position.
- Search Volume Trends - each keyword's average search volume, volume trends over for one year, and the month(s) that recorded the highest search volume.
The universe of keywords is forever expanding - new demands and competition are generating new terminologies e.g. iPods, not so popular about 6 years back, have now spawned many new terms like 'podcasts'. Fashionable new writing styles forces you to balance marketing budget constraints with growing consumer behaviour and product management complexities.
Smart keyword selection not only ensures your buisness spot emerging trends, but also gain high natural search engine rankings which deliver qualified traffic to your website.
Outsourcing keyword management to established search engine optimization firms can save you time and money whilst helping lower the overall cost of Internet branding and website management.
Search engine optimization firms have made significant investments in leading web tools, global copy experts, experienced media planners and have seasoned technologists with the knowledge to help boost your bottom line.
Ewan Watt Director - http://www.ROI.com.au
Ewan has over 10 years experience in website marketing and runs ROI.com.au which is one of Australia's leading search engine optimization companies.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/
Added: April 19, 2008
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