Keyword Generation and Research

Keyword Research Theory

Keyword research serves as the foundation for any SEO campaign. The Keywords and keyword phrases found in that research are used to target highly specific visitors who will be interested in your website. If the research is conducted incorrectly, or does not have the global objective in mind, the outcome of the SEO campaign can be affected negatively due to poorly qualified traffic that is not interested in what the site has to offer.

What Are Keywords?

Generally speaking, a keyword is any term or phrase that can be associated with your website. However, there are often terms that relate to your website but may not be valuable because the user searching for such a keyword does not find your site of value to him or her.

For example, a custom motorcycle builder has a website that advertises “Custom Choppers”, an obvious keyword such as “choppers” would not be as highly valued as a more specific keyword phrase. The term “choppers” can be associated with many sectors other than motorcycles. For instance, a website about helicopters, wood chippers, salad choppers, etc. can also be associated with that term.

This idea introduces the long-tail and short-tail theories of keyword research.

Short-Tail vs. Long-Tail

A short-tail keyword is a term that gives a broad and general sense of what the website is about but is also loosely related. In the example above, “motorcycles” or “choppers” would be considered a short-tail keyword. These two keywords can have hundreds of uses that don’t always relate to the targeted audience.

A long-tail keyword is a term that gives a specific description of what will be found on the website and is directly related to the sites content. Using the same example, “handmade custom V-twin choppers” would be a long-tail keyword. This term is very specific as to what the site is oriented towards and therefore when the “Custom Choppers” website is returned as a search engine result to the user, the subject matter is more likely to be of interest to them.

Now that we know the different types of keywords, how do we know what combinations of either are most valued?

Researching & Selecting Keywords

Submitawebsite uses a number of online tools in generating and selecting valuable keywords. With keyword generating programs we are able to scour the Google database for the most searched and relevant keywords to any given industry. The data returned by the keyword program displays several valuable metrics used in deciding what keywords will send qualified traffic to the website.

The two most important metrics used in the selection of keywords are search volume and advertiser competition.

Search volume relates to the number of searches that a given keyword receives on average. A higher search volume indicates that the term is popular amongst search engine users and is therefore a valuable term. However, in selecting terms with high search volume, the logic of relevance must be used to sort out ambiguous keywords such as the aforementioned “choppers”.

Advertiser competition relates to the popularity of a term in the paid search category. A keyword that returns a high advertiser competition indicates that this keyword is heavily bid upon in the paid search network. By this we can deduct that this keyword is a valuable and tested term by competitors that returns quality traffic interested in the sites content.

Conclusion

Keyword research and generation is a process in which search engine trends and user tendencies are observed to capture the largest audience. However, a large audience is not valuable unless they are interested in what the website has to offer. In conjunction with Submitawebsite’s years of top SEO experience, we use a process of reason and logic to ensure the selection of relevant and valuable keywords for your SEO campaign.