Question

Topic: SEO/SEM

How Do I Do Keyword Research?

Posted by Anonymous on 5/6/2010 at 8:25 PM ET 250 Points
I recently started a leadership and career ownership coaching firm for young professionals. How do I do keyword research to drive more traffic to my site. I assume people search for: young professional leadership, young professionals, career ownership, young profesional careers, etc. How do I find out for sure which words to try and rank for?

Inspiratude.com is my site

thanks
Coach Al
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  • Posted on 5/6/2010 at 9:00 PM Moderator
    Suggest you pick up the book Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords, by Perry Marshall and Bryan Todd. It will answer your question and much more.

    Here's a link: https://bit.ly/dmlZeH to check it out at Amazon
  • Posted by SEM and Interactive on 5/6/2010 at 10:04 PM Accepted
    Hey man.I would not spend a cent at this point in time. There are plenty of FREE tools out there that will help you do keyword research.

    I can tell that as someone that has been doing this for many years....keyword research is more about HOW you do it than what you use to do it.

    Make sure that you understand the concept of "lont tail" keywords. In a nutshell...this means that you should build a keyword list by using modifiers to create a large lists of keywords that have very little competiton, have very low cost per click and typically have a better conversion.

    For example. If your service is dog training. You should use geographical and other modifiers to find good keywords like

    Orlando Florida Dog Training
    Orlando Dog Training
    Orlando Dog Trainer
    Dog Trainer in Orlando

    If you service is global or national, then you can use other modifiers like. Lets say that you have a "Online writing course"...you can use keywords like:

    - cheap online writing course
    - online writing course
    - writing course on the web
    - learn how to write
    -etc.

    There are a number of free keyword tools. However, the best FREE one in my opinion is the free adword keyword tool which can be found at:

    https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

    Make sure that you understand the difference between exact martch, broad match and phrase match.Pay attention to the following metrics in google adword keyword tool:

    - CPC (cost per click)
    - Search Volume (preferrable in exact match becuase is closer to the real number_
    - Competiton (this metric ONLY shows AdWords competition, but is good idea on how competitive the keyword is)


    This tool uses Google data, but since they are the dominant search engine in the U.S. and most of the world. Its the best free keyword tool in my opinion. Another great tool which is not FREE is keyword samurai.

    Good Luck and feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I will also be glad to provide you with a free 30 consulting session.

    Thanks<

    Rob
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 5/6/2010 at 10:10 PM Accepted
    Dear Coach Al,

    Don't assume.

    I'm advising this for a very simple reason: you are not your customer. The resources at the end of this post ought to at least help you make some informed decisions, but you've got to think more like your customers.

    Are most or many of your clients from a certain geographical
    area? If so, use local city and town names WITHIN the body of your site copy to help optimize for those terms. So, in your case your search terms might include:

    "Coaching in Lisle, IL"

    "Life coaching in IL"

    And so on.

    Likewise for the varying kinds of coaching you offer. Think of
    the SOLUTIONS you're offering. Think of the CHANGES you bring about in people's lives.

    Be specific. In specificity there is gold. Another tactic you can use, and one I can pretty much guarantee no one else in your niche is using in your area, and that's video.

    Google owns YouTube. YouTube now uses speech to text recognition software so that keywords that are SPOKEN in videos can and are being used to rank those videos for keyword specificity.

    For the keyword search "Life coaching Lisle Illinois" there are 38,700 results on Google, but there are no videos that pop up in the Google stream. None. Might there be space there for you to do something creative?

    Likewise with a few keyword specific domain names that you can buy for cheap and then set up redirects through your hosting service to funnel traffic to keyword rich pages on your main website.

    I hope the following links are of value.

    https://www.searchengineguide.com/lisa-barone/five-steps-to-effective-keywo...

    https://www.improvetheweb.com/how-to-conduct-your-keyword-research-and-make...

    https://www.topicalseo.com/writing-keyword-web-content/

    I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

    Gary Bloomer
    The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
    Wilmington, DE, USA

  • Posted by excellira on 5/7/2010 at 8:42 PM Member
    I agree with @sem. The adwords tool is a great start. If you're looking for organic search key phrases then select "exact match" when using this tool. Also take a look at SEO book's tools.

    Start out with a seed list of words that you feel best describe the products, services, or content that you wish to offer. Then expand upon them through the use of the tools and by analyzing your site content and that of your competitors (defined as relevant pages that are ranking for your target keyword phrases).

    Analyze the list for 1) relevance, 2) search intent, 3) search volume, 4) competition (in this case the number of results that Google presents when doing an exact match search (a search in quotes: "keyword phrase"), and 5) The number of intitle exact-match results (gives a fair idea of the number of SEO optimized pages).

    There's a lot more to this but it would take hours and hours to convey this. Wordtracker has a "university" that contains a lot of good info. Take a look there.
  • Posted on 5/9/2010 at 7:41 PM Member
    First of all check out this post from Ian Lurie: https://www.oshyn.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?PostID=81176&A=SearchResult&...

    Use the Google Adwords Tool to get an idea of the relevance of keywords and find other relevant keywords.

    Once you have a better understanding of the keywords people may use to find you - you can incorporate that into your copy and meta data.

    My experience on the website I manage is that long tail keywords are very effective. Focus on them...and you're shorter tail keywords will grow too.
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