keyword research

keyword research is a vital part of seo

You wouldn’t set off on a journey without knowing your destination,,likewise it’s inappropriate to begin working on SEO for a website without a clear understanding of what our aims are. Without an effective and sometimes very detailed keyword research phase before starting to update pages, it’s likely that a lot of time could be wasted, working on terms or keyword themes which don’t convert to sales, or are simply unattainable at the time. The only exception to this being fixing technical problems with the site, this can be done before or during the keyword research as there could be problems which are preventing the site from ranking at all.

It’s essential to find out exactly which words and terms your potential website visitors are typing in to the search engines when they go online so we can focus the campaign around these terms and phrases. A common mistake is to jump in blind, making assumptions, but not knowing what is being searched for without first confirming it.  We also take a look at the competition for the terms we decide upon to make sure that we can rank for them within your budget.

keyword research helps us to set realistic expectations

There is no point competing for keyword terms when the top results are dominated by long established, high authority websites which are optimised for the terms and present the correct information or products when people click through unless you have the budget to compete.  Consider that the big players in competitive markets, spend tens of thousands of pounds on SEO and online marketing on a monthly basis, unless you have the same, or more to spend, you’re unlikely to beat them.  Good examples being the financial, mobile phone, no win no fee, utility industries and various high value products. But all is not lost……

Thorough keyword research will provide hundreds or possibly thousands of opportunities for us to target, these are terms and phrases which your buying customers are using when they search the internet.  The trick here is to identify keywords which are specific to your business and it’s USP’s along with being achievable in terms of search results.  As an example, if you are a solicitor in Swindon and one of the areas of law you specialise in is commercial litigation, you are unlikely to rank for “commercial litigation” without a large budget, however after researching your keywords we may find that “commercial solicitors swindon” and “swindon commercial lawyers” would attract the right visitors and are achievable.

If there is a sensible level of competition, either because people have not optimised for the term (which is becoming increasingly rare these days), the competition have simply not done their research and missed the opportunity or because the top results aren’t offering the kind of information people are looking for, these are the terms we would target.

Our initial keyword research phase will provide data on how many people are searching for the terms you have thought of and suggest others which you probably haven’t considered, along with trends such as which are becoming more popular and which have decreasing numbers of searchers. We can also research the competition for those words and terms and advise on which are likely to achieve good results in the shortest timeframe.

The words and terms ultimately used will be utilised throughout the entire seo campaign, in addition these words will be visible to searchers when you start appearing at the top of the search engines through the way they are incorporated into the overall website design, so web users will be much more likely to click on your listing, as they will instantly know it is relevant for them.

words and terms are under constant review

Although much more time consuming when launching a project, the keyword research is something which is continually refined over time, some terms will be dropped, others changed and new ones added to make sure we aren’t just attracting people to your website, but attracting and retaining the type of people who are looking for exactly what your business has to offer.

Of course, the keywords we focus on and track are included in monthly SEO reports, along with data and graphs about traffic arriving on the site and a range of other information.

If you would like to discuss our full range of SEO services please call us free on 0800 0488832 or send us an enquiry and we will get back to you.