SEO Techniques: Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of any SEO campaign and getting this right can often be the difference between success and failure. It’s actually quite surprising how many people overlook this fundamental step so investing time at this early stage will avoid you pain later down the line.
To help you begin your research you need to consult a keyword research tool such as WordTracker, Semrush or Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You also need to understand some basics on keyword ‘types’.

The long and short of it

Keywords fall into two types known as long tail and short tail (or ‘head’ keywords’). Short tail keywords are broad terms used to describe a subject or item, for example ‘fashion news’, ‘weddings’, ‘football scores’. Longer tail terms (and phrases) are generally more descriptive, such as ‘stylish wedding venues cheshire’.
Another key difference is that short tail keywords are typically more difficult to rank for but deliver a greater volume of traffic. Longer tail keywords generate less traffic but this traffic is likely to be much more targeted.
An effective strategy is usually a combination of the two so you attract a good range of visitor. To explain further: short tail search queries are often performed by users researching a subject, product or service. For instance, a newly engaged couple may carry out a search for the term ‘weddings’ to find out which websites to visit during their engagement. Conversely, a couple getting married in a week’s time may carry out a more specific search query such as ‘where can I buy cheap confetti for my wedding’. Both sets of visitors are valuable (in this instance one for acquisition and one for conversion) so it is important to attract both types of people.

In terms of the skew between long tail and short tail search terms, Hitwise research shows that on any given topic, 5.7% of all website traffic is delivered from the top 100 keywords; long tail keywords account for the rest (94.3%). It is therefore imperative that you get the latter right since it is easier to rank for lots of long tail keywords than a small subset of short tail terms.
To get the right mix, you really need to consult your analytics tool to see what type of traffic each keyword is delivering. Depending on your KPI’s, broad terms may be useful at delivering traffic to generate page impressions for advertising, if that is your aim.
If you’re just starting out a good rule of thumb is to spend 70% of your time optimising for long tail keywords and 30% for short tail. Then refine this as you start to see results.

Time to identify your target keywords

Now you understand the basics of keyword types the next stage is to carry out some research.
Firstly, pull together a table with the following headings to identify keywords for your sector. Then populate with keyword suggestions from your keyword research tool. The below is a set of sample keywords for 'women's fashion' as suggested by Adwords:

In terms of ‘monthly searches’ you need to be specific here and filter by the territory you are targeting. If you only supply to UK customers then you need to find out how many local (UK) searches take place, otherwise you will see heavily inflated figures.
All keyword tools will give some indication of keyword competitiveness but you can also back this up by typing the phrase into Google and recording how many pages get returned (used in the example above).

From this quick sample of keyword data we can quickly see the difference between short and long tail keywords and which terms to target. The short tail keyword ‘womens fashion’ generates the highest number of monthly searches but the greatest number of competing pages; whereas ‘ladies fashion’, (another short tail keyword) generates the best ratio of competing pages vs. local monthly searches. You may decide to optimise for both ‘womens fashion’ and ‘ladies fashion’, but you would probably avoid ‘ladies clothes’ as this generates the least number of monthly searches vs. competing pages.

By way of contrast if we look at the long tail search term ‘shift dresses for women’ this generates a relatively small number of monthly searches but it will be easier to rank for this term. Traffic is also likely to be much more targeted.
This isn’t always the case though, and you may discover short tail keywords with a small number of competing sites yet a high number of monthly searches. That’s why keywords research is so invaluable...you may just discover those hidden phrases that will deliver the right traffic to your website.

Now you've got the basics it's time to start with the research...