Developing Your Keyword Strategy

Before you start any organic or paid search marketing program, you need to know which keywords you are targeting.  For our purposes, we will define keywords as what the searcher types into the search box.  This can be a single word or it might be a phrase. 

Keyword Strategy 

If you have been around Internet marketing for any length of time, you have probably heard of keyword research. This is the process of identifying the keyword universe that is available in a given market.  However, keyword strategy goes much further than research.  Keyword strategy also includes:

• which message you want to present in the search listings
• which landing or entry page you want to display
• which pages you can get ranked for a given term

Key Considerations:

Not all searches are created equal so as part of your keyword strategy you must consider:

• Search Volume
• Relevance
• Commercial Intent 

Search Volume - is how many searches are performed on a given term per month.  We can't do anything to influence this number but we obviously want to understand relative search volume from one term to another.

Relevance- the idea of relevance is that we want to target search terms that provide the best opportunity for us to satisfy the searchers needs.  The results in a high click through rate when we can get site visitors to take action.

Commercial Intent - when people search, they are searching for something.  Therefore, keywords represent intent.  However, intent is not always so clear cut.  Some searches are to learn more about a topic, others are to research alternatives and others still are to find the best deal or make a purchase. 

Microsoft offers a free tool Detecting Online Commercial Intent that can help give us an idea whether a search query is informational or commercial.  But keep in mind this is only an estimate and that no tool can give us a perfect estimate of human intent (at least not yet).  So for now, real life testing and analysis will still provide our best proof. 

 Free Search Marketing Guide: Develop Your Keyword List

To get additional guidance in performing keyword research and building your keyword list, download this free guide. Download it Now