Feb 21, 2013 Staff

Tips for Keyword Selection

 

Keyword selection is an important part of SEO for content marketers. Without doing proper research and analysis, your content marketing efforts may largely be wasted. The Content Marketing Institute has a list of twelve questions to ask yourself when selecting keywords for SEO purposes.

Have I mined keyword research resources?
AdWords, Keyword Discovery, WordTracker and similar tools are good sources for possible keywords, and can show you how many monthly searches are done on targeted keyword phrases.

Is the keyword phrase relevant?
Your keyword phrase needs to match what your business does. The keywords you choose must look like a natural part of what you’re writing.

Are we buying this keyword phrase through paid search?
Don't ignore SEO for a keyword phrase, just because you are also using it for paid search. Ideally, you'd like to rank high for both paid results and organic results.

Am I already ranking for the keyword phrase?
Tools like Web CEO, BrightEdge, and SEOmoz can give you ranking data to let you know where you stand as you start writing.

Will my new page adequately mention the keyword phrase?
Be sure to incorporate your most strategic keyword phrases more than once in your writing. Look for natural opportunities to mention keywords. Once every 150-200 words is probably optimal.

How much traffic is my website receiving for the keyword phrase?
Look at your own website analytics and analyze the initial keywords used to reach your website and your internal site search data when they arrive. Keep in mind that you don’t need a lot of visitors to connect with good prospects

Am I getting website traffic for similar keywords?
Check your website analytics to see what relevant keywords people are searching for that you didn’t include on you list of strategic keyword phrases.

Is this keyword phrase (or similar phrases) already converting?
Track keywords through your website analytics and conversion funnels, including e-commerce (associating keywords with product sales).

Are there calls to action on the page?
What is the offer? What does it look like? If you've gotten traffic as a result of your SEO efforts, you don't want the visitor to have to struggle to figure out what you want him to do as a result of viewing your content.

Are there related pages that could support an internal link strategy?
Your content marketing strategy will get a boost through SEO if you have related pages created to support internal cross-linking. Create opportunities to cross-link the strategic keywords in the anchor text on several of your pages or posts.

How will this keyword phrase choice fit into future content?
Use a content calendar to plan your content marketing for weeks ahead. Your content planning strategies should reflect your keyword phrase priorities and deficiencies.

Is the keyword phrase in our domain name?
For respectable websites, the domain name still seems to influence search engine rankings.


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Published by Staff February 21, 2013