Choosing Killer Keywords for SEO

Choosing the right keywords is an essential part of your SEO strategy.  Once you know the killer keywords that your customers are using to search for your products you can build your search engine optimisation plan accordingly.

So, how do you go about finding those killer keywords?  Here are my tips:

Brainstorm keywords you think you should use

It’s an obvious, but important step.  What does your company do?  What do you sell?  Starting with a basic list of your products or services is an easy way to get some initial keyword ideas.  But once you’ve got the obvious keywords on paper dig deeper and add subcategories.

For example, you own a beauty salon and all you have on your keyword list is waxing, facials and massages.  That’s a great start but you can do better.  Don’t you actually offer eyebrow waxing , leg waxing and bikini line waxing (ouch!)?

With a little bit of thought you can probably come up with some two word keyphrases and you’re on your way to developing a good SEO strategy.

Keyword Research: The Secret Weapon of SEO

There’s a secret weapon used by Search Engine Optimisation experts the world over – Google Adwords Keyword Tool.  This will show you if your customers are using synonyms, misspellings, singular or plural versions of your keyword and more.  Let’s look at our beauty salon, who came up with the keywords “leg waxing”:

All basic variations to do with leg waxing that they might expect.  But further down you’ll see gems like:

and

…these could be smartly optimised articles “Does leg waxing hurt?  Not with Our Beauty Salon’s patented anti-ouch leg waxing formula…”  Or they might suggest new markets to target.  Who knew men long for silky smooth legs too?

Now this example may seem silly but it’s unexpected keyword results like this that might suggest new directions for your SEO campaign.

Long-tail keyphrases

Here’s another top tip for successful search engine optimisation.  Searchers who are looking to buy or book something will often use 3 or 4 keywords in their search engine query.    These are known as long-tail keyphrases and you want to find the ones that your customers are using.

If a potential customer for our beauty salon searches for leg waxing here’s what they’ll see:

Not very useful.  They are far more likely to get what they want if they search for “professional leg waxing Nottingham” or “mens leg waxing Nottingham”.  It is these keyword phrases that you need to identify and start using.

You’ll generally find that less people are searching for your long-tail keyphrases.  But the ones that do are more likely to become customers.  Especially if your website is well-optimised and full of useful content to help them buy your product or service.

So, to identify the killer keywords that will make your SEO strategy a runaway success, remember to:

• Brainstorm your keywords
• Research your keywords
• Think outside the box – never miss an SEO opportunity suggested by keyword research
• Start thinking like a customer and develop long-tail keyphrases.

Good luck!

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Katie Saxon

Tags: keywords

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 9:11 am and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.