Today, let’s talk about a simple search engine optimisation technique. I’ll be discussing how to target the right keywords for your SEO campaign. In his interview with Gideon Shalwick, Dave mentions “SEO is all about making sure that you are targeting the right keywords to come up in the organic search results”.  When you target the right keywords you target the right audience.

A successful SEO campaign starts with good keyword research. People fall into the trap of looking for keywords with the highest search volume thinking that it would bring hordes of traffic to their website. What these people do not realize is that keywords with high search volume also have very high competition.  More competition means investing more time and effort to beat all the other websites competing for the same keyword only to get visitors on your site who are not interested in buying your product at all.

But how would you know if the keywords you are targeting are the keywords your potential customers are typing in the search engines?

One good search engine optimisation technique to follow is to put yourself into the shoes of the searcher. Don’t think like an SEO expert, think like a customer. If you were a person looking to buy your product how would you Google it?

Keyword Research Tips – Browsing vs Buying Keywords

To bring targeted traffic to your website you need to choose keywords that people are using to find products and services similar to yours.  Studies have shown that 40% of searches are done via local based keywords.  To put it simply, people are adding locations to their search queries.  When people add a location to their search they are actually looking for a specific product in a specific location.

For example, if I were a small business owner in Melbourne looking for SEO services for my website what keywords would I use?

a. SEO

b. SEO services

c. SEO services Melbourne

Someone searching for “SEO” can just be looking for information about search engine optimisation. They are probably conducting a research for school or doing a presentation at work about SEO. A person searching for “seo services” is deeper into the search process. They are looking for more specific information.  Now, somebody searching for “seo services Melbourne” is looking for a specific product in a specific location. These people are more likely buyers than researchers.  (And if you answered “c” you are more likely to have a more successful SEO campaign than those who answered “a”).

For more keyword research tips watch this video of our recent search engine optimisation workshop to learn more about the keyword research process. In this video, Dave talks about browsing vs buying keywords and how it would bring targeted traffic to your site.

Dominating your “ego’ or “primary keyword” is a huge task depending on what the keyword is that you are focusing your efforts towards, and of course, how competitive that keyword is. You see, another question that I get asked a lot is “How can I rank #1 for my main keyword in Google”. I never answer that question. Instead, I return fire with another question. “What relevant long tail keywords are you trying to rank well for?”.

Human nature says that we want to do the best that we possibly can in the shortest time frame possible, so when someone says to me that there are more long tail keywords in existence than primary keywords, I can understand this notion and how it applies to me and my business, however, to the newbie this is not all that clear and easy to put into perspective. The money is where the broad keywords are, IF you can rank well for that keyword, so naturally when we are trying to rank our website well for our chosen dominant keyword, it is always going to be a hard task unless we learn to take our time and dominate the long tail first.

Let me be as clear as possible about this, as this is an error that I see a lot of webmasters make every single day. In competitive niches where there are plenty of broad dominant keywords, you are always going to have a hard time ranking well unless you have won in the long tail first. Not only is relevancy in the search engines going to be a difficult obstacle, other competing webmasters are going to be able to see you a mile away, and will take preventative measures to protect their websites position in the search engine rankings.

Lets use an example to explain this methodology a bit further. Lets say that I am creating a website based on electric guitars. Ranking for the keyword “electric guitars” would be very tough considering how many people are already competing within that niche. In fact, at the moment, there are over two million people competing for that keyword in Google. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to focus on that keyword, instead, I am going to narrow down a list of longer tail keywords. For instance, Fender Guitars is a subcategory in that main keyword. Lets look at it in Google. There are now 500,000 people competing for that keyword, and is still tough to compete, but winnable if we go further down the long tail. “Fender Telecaster” is a bit deeper into that niche, but with 700,000 people competing, it is going to be hard to compete. Again, lets go deeper. “American Nashville B-Bender Telecaster” has only 16,000 people competing.

So, lets put this into perspective for a moment, to avoid losing you on a tangent here. Google bases its search queries on relevancy. This includes things such as bounce rate, time spend on a domain, and so on and so forth. If you are creating a website that is focused on a broad niche, you need to be broad and focus on as many directly relevant keywords and phrases in order to dominate the number one position. This is unavoidable if you want to win a major keyword. With the above example, I demonstrated that broad keywords are extremely hard to win unless you start working on the longer tail keywords first. In the above example, I would focus first on the guitar brand names rather than the main keyword. If you win smaller keywords such as these first, you will find that over time, your website will become extremely relevant to your main keyword that you would like to dominate, and over time, your chances of becoming an authority site within your niche increases significantly.

So, there we have it. Although, within certain extremely high competition niches, this is not going to be that easy, however, this should serve as a decent guideline for you when planning out your next website concept, and as a solid reminder of the importance of researching your keywords before you start a new project. Remember, any niche is winnable, but rarely winnable by focusing on only your ego keyword.

How to Get Your Keyword Focus Right

There’s a counter-intuitive knack to getting keyword focus right on your website. We all love our keywords, and we love rushing through choosing the best for the right concept. The truth at the end of the day is that although some see keyword research as being something that you can simply rush through, it is hands down one of the most important aspects of the development of any website concept, thus taking your time doing keyword research is absolutely of the most importance when creating a new website concept.

The ‘Ego Keyword”

For example, with every website, there is one main keyword that we like to focus our time and energy on, this is the main keyword that will bring in traffic and money, more affectionately referred to as our ‘ego keyword’. One mistake that a lot of webmasters tend to make early in their planning stages is that they go after their main ‘ego keyword’ too hard and too fast. You see, the problem here is that in almost all cases, your main keyword is going to take some work to attain decent rankings under.

A quick sidenote here: make sure you have your main ‘ego’ or ‘money’ keyword in your domain url so it is easier to rank for.

To put things into perspective here, site authority is one of those phrases that we hear a lot. This refers to the kind of site that you own, and how capable it is of being the largest source of information under your chosen keyword in your niche. If you provide the right amount of high quality information, then people will find themselves attracted to your site. Of course, under every single main keyword, there are always going to be many longer tail keywords, much more specific buying phrases that may not bring in large amounts of traffic, but as a collective, tend to focus on the real guts of the content that is contained within your niche.

Focus On Your ‘Ego Keyword’ Last!

When it comes to ranking for your chosen ‘ego keyword’, the best advice that I can give to you is to spend only the time that is absolutely necessary on ranking for that main keyword. This should only be around 20% of your time. Instead, spend time ranking for those easier to win long tail keywords. Let me explain how and why this works.

As I mentioned earlier about site authority, a site that contains a huge amount of information with regards to the main keyword and niche that you are targeting will attract traffic and return visitors. You will find selling products and ad space on these websites to be a much easier task as well.  So, one could naturally assume that if you have site authority under your main keyword, things are going to run a lot smoother for you, right? Of course! Any website that you look at that ranks #1 for any tough keyword will almost always have a large library of great content, and will have been built from the ground up content wise.

Of course we can always look at the scenario of the webmaster who tried to place focus on their main keyword from the start that managed to rank on the first page of Google, then was quickly knocked out of the rankings because they didn’t SEO their entire keyword list properly before going in for the kill. Personally, I know this story quite well. I tried and failed myself once before, and learned this lesson the hard way.

To summarize, here is a brief step by step process:

1.    Research your main keyword and all the sub niches under that keyword that you can rank for that are directly relevant to your concept. Take your time doing this.
2.    Start creating your content from the ground up. Place most of your focus on ranking for your easy wins, your longer tail keywords and buying phrases.
3.    Once you have comfortably dominated your long tail keywords, start investing more time in your main ‘ego keyword’. In most instances, this could happen automatically, but as defence against your competition, make sure that you have an SEO plan that is repeatable that will keep you one foot ahead at all times. Keyword research is not the kind of task that should be simplified, instead it should be comprehensive and cover all bases. Can you rank for your keywords? Do you have the resources and the time? And most importantly, can you rank for your keywords in the right order, as a means of creating a sustainable ranking for your main keywords?

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