Keyword Research

Do it before building your site

It's been said that the best time to optimise your website is when it's still a project on the drawing board and not been built yet. This is for various reasons, but mainly so that you can incorporate the right keywords in your text to attract the right traffic when you site is listed within search engines.

Get a pencil and paper, and compile a list of keywords relating to your site - include individual product titles and types (for example, an individual product title would be 'Phoenix urban skate', and the product type would be 'roller skate'), your contact details and location. We've also found that listing the nearest major city is often very useful too. This is mainly because major cities are often typed into search engines ten times more often than smaller towns.
 

Google Keyword Suggestion Tool and Wordtracker

Then run a search on Google for 'Google Adwords Keyword Suggestion Tool'. This is a very useful application which provides data for each suggested keyword, listing who is using that keyword both locally and globally, but also variations of it - providing keywords relating to your original choice which perhaps you hadn't considered.

It's also worth visiting www.wordtracker.com and opening an account there too, for a more indepth and precise breakdown of the various search terms that apply to your website. Although Wordtracker is not free, at the time of writing, it's only £161 per year or £28 per month with a money back guarantee, and uses a mathematical formula, in the form of a keyword effectiveness index, to help you identify the best search terms applicable to your site and services. Having an account at Wordtracker to collaborate with the results from Google Adwords ensures that you have two very reliable sources in which to refer to. If you would like a free trial then visit our home page and click on the Wordtracker graphic located in the left hand panel.

Now you have an even bigger and longer list of keywords - we suggest that you save these in a notepad file, as you'll need them for writing the content for your website and submitting your site's address to various other websites later on. It's also a good idea to contact your suppliers and ask them if they were going to find you on a search engine - what word or phrase would they type in? - you'll find most will be more than happy to oblige.

Put yourself in the mind of your potential customers

When compiling a list of keywords and search terms from Google and Wordtracker, remember to consider what your potential customers will be typing into their search engine, or rather, what your competitors will type in. For example, your main competitor 'Stephen's Skate Emporium' will be checking how well your website ranks in comparison to his. To do this, he'll be going onto Google and typing in 'roller skate suppliers in Dewsbury' or 'roller skate shops in Leeds' and seeing where his website ranks compared to yours and his other competitors.

The same non-descript search terms will also, as a rule of thumb, be used by other companies wishing to target your business with the aims of selling you stuff, and by students looking for jobs and work experience. Potential customers to your roller skate shop however, are more likely to enter more product specific key words, known in the industry as 'long tailed' search terms, such as 'buy Phoenix quad skates in Dewsbury' or 'ball-bearing nylon rim skate wheels in Leeds'.

These are niche phrases specific to the individual product, and something that your competitor probably may not type in to gauge your search engine popularity. We advise you to use the general keywords for your home page, but you also need a variety of product specific search terms too for your inner pages to drive traffic to specific pages within your site.

If you would like a free website report for your site detailing how we can improve it from a user's and search engine's point of view give us a call on 01204 383 599 or use our contact form