If you’re new to search engine marketing and don’t know where to begin I would recommend keyword research as a starting point. This applies to both existing website owners who are looking to increase the visibility of their site(s) as well as internet start-ups who are in the planning phase of a brand new site.

Keyword research is vital as it will help you to understand search engine user behaviour more accurately. You may think that you already know the terms that people are most likely to tap into a search engine to discover your website, however it is not recommended that you work on this assumption. The result of working this way can often lead to poorly targeted traffic and low sales conversion rates. Whilst working for my client, E3 Group (an entertainment booking agency), I created and optimised a web page aimed at event planners looking to book a comedian. I used various keyword tools to identify the terms most likely to result in leads for my client. I then tested these terms using paid search. Broad and generic keywords such as “comedians” resulted in a fairly significant amount of traffic but a very poor conversion rate. When you think about it, this is hardly surprising. People searching on the term “comedians” are doing so for a wide number of reasons. They could be looking for information on their favourite stand-up, they could be looking for video content to make them laugh, they could be looking for a guide to “what’s on” in terms of live comedy. They could be looking for a host of other things not connected to booking a comedian. Keyword research and experimentation with paid search enabled me to identify the terms most likely to generate targeted traffic and leads.

Keyword research is also vital because it enables you to assess both the volume of searches that are actually being carried out by search engine users and the competition that exists on your chosen terms. Research tools such as Wordtracker and Trellian both utilise the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) to assist web marketers with their decisions on which terms to target. Using these tools and observing the KEI can often assist with discovering fairly high volume search terms with high-intent that are not being targeted as much by your competitors. Another example, again with E3 Group, is the search term “opera singers for weddings“. I discovered using keyword research tools that this term had a relatively high search volume but wasn’t being targeted by many of E3’s competitors. I created a blog on the subject and within a few days I put this term on page one of Google and the number one spot on Bing. This term now generates wedding enquiries for my client.

Once you have researched your keywords and created a definitive list of the ones you plan to target, the next step is to give some thought to keyword management. If you’re initially dealing with hundreds rather than thousands of keywords, an effective option for management could be to create a spreadsheet utilizing the tab function in order to seperate your categories. You can then order your keywords within each category according to whichever factors are most important to you, be it search volumes, KEI, intent, or any other factor you wish to add (obviously, most of this information you will have gleaned from tools such as the ones above). You’re then ready to start optimising your individual web pages using your research or, alternatively, cutting and pasting your category keywords into your PPC ad groups.

However, if you’re managing many thousands of keywords or you’re looking for a more dynamic solution for both keyword discovery and management there are some effective tools available online. Wordstream, for example, offer an intelligent, “next generation” approach to the issues faced by marketers dealing with vast amounts of keywords. This is worth considering although it does come with a price tag.

This brief introduction to keyword research and management is intended to offer the “basics”. For anyone serious about this subject and search engine optimisation issues generally I would strongly recommend downloading E-consultancy’s white paper “SEO Best Practice Guide“. It features a comprehensive section on “Keyphrase analysis and selection” together with all of the other key factors that should be considered in SEO. This is copyrighted information and can not be shared here, but access to the document is available through membership.