For all the new multimedia technologies and incredible advancements that take place online, the diverse and evolving world of SEO still relies heavily on keyword analysis.
Overlooking this area is something that occurs quite regularly with the need to generate more content in a variety of forms, leaving gaps for website owners to have their search engine optimisation lagging behind their competitors.
Keywords should be viewed as a compass that guides your standing and navigates to where you want to go.
Keyword analysis can therefore be considered one of the foundations for SEO.
This identifies what people are specifically searching for online, whether that be a service, a product or network.
This tackles the important questions – Who is searching for you? Where are they looking? What are they typing? What are they clicking on? What aren’t they clicking on?
All of this background will inform those making the content about their strategy as it becomes valuable feedback on the habitats of the people you need to be informed about.
Acquiring this knowledge could be viewed from the outside as overly time consuming, but there are avenues and methods to use that will spread out the exact metrics at your fingertips.
By breaking down the niche or market that is involved with the website, the process of keyword analysis can allow the user to enter untapped marketplaces, identify and join upcoming trends, enter online dialogue and conversations, and provide a higher return on investment.
Search marketers use keyword analysis as a means of customising a landing page, giving the site the best chance of success.
Discover Your Keywords For Your Website
There are two fundamental areas that are involved with keyword analysis – the first of which is finding out exactly what customers and viewers are searching for.
There are a variety of online software applications that can service this need, ranging from free tools like WordStream, Ubersuggest and Google Keyword Planner to those that have to be paid for such as FreshKey.
Before this is undertaken, the first step is to brainstorm the keywords for your business and to do this successfully – put yourself in the shoes of the customer.
If you were a prospective consumer for this good or service, what would they type in? If you happen to run a surf shop in Bondi for example, what would they be looking for on Google, Bing or Yahoo?
Write down a top 10 bucket list of keywords that you feel would apply to your site. E.g.:
- Surfing
- Bondi
- Surf wear
- Clothing
- Beach
- Eastern Suburbs
- Surfboard
- Traction pad
- Australia
- Waves
Once that has been formulated, run them through the automation system to find out what hits will work best.
On this example, Google Keyword Planner were able to identify a higher volume of searches for “surf art, surf camp, surf wear” and “let’s go surfing” than for “Bondi surf” or “Bondi beach surf,” which fell below 1000 monthly searches on their platform.
This might require some experimenting to include some of those terms and discarding others along the way.
These tools will allow you to enter the keyword that you feel is most applicable within the industry that fits the market and specified to a country, state or city.
What this study will break down is the sheer volume by numbers, what competition there is to have these keywords as part of your description and marketing campaign, and what rates are charged.
What should be kept in mind at all times is the need to stay informed on keyword trends weekly or even daily if possible.
What will be searched for will fluctuate depending on the time of season, tourism, socioeconomic factors or anything else that will shift the online search habits of people within a specific geographic location.
Keep the keyword analysis relevant and up to date at all times.
Act on Your Keyword Discovery
If the first step was finding out what customers and viewers have been searching for, the next is to implement those terms into your website content.
To optimise this area, keywords must be inclusive throughout all high-attention zones of the website: the title, meta description, meta tags, heading tags and URL.
- Title – The title is the go-to keyword that must encompass in finite detail what the company is all about. If it is as simple as “Bondi Surfing” then that is the title that must be utilised.
- Should there be plenty of competition in that realm, then nail it down to be more specific in order to stand out. Think of an idea like “Bondi Surf Wear” or “Bondi Beach Surf.”
- Meta description – It can be difficult to deduce your entire operation down to a handful of words, and this is where the meta description allows a bit of leeway to expand on what you could not in the title.
- “Bondi Surf sells the best surf wear across the Eastern Suburbs from surfboards to wetsuits right in the middle of town at a competitive price,” would be a suitable meta description.
- Meta tags – These little gems are keywords that are in direct reference to the meta description. They would be broken down into terms like “Surfing, Bondi, Beach, Surf wear, Wetsuits.”
- Heading tags – Headings and sub-heading are a great method of allowing keywords to stand out from the crowd and be found through SEO.
- They are divided up into four categories: H1, H2, H3 and H4. The further they venture down the scale, the more specific they should be.
- H1 is at the peak of the tree and acts as the headline performer. H2 are key sub-headings and the others act as the detail. For example: “Bondi Surf (H1), Surf Wear (H2), Wetsuits (H3), Wetsuits Men (H4).”
- URL – Having the keyword imbedded into the website URL is a must. The best ranking sites keep this domain short and simple, keeping their content consistent from the top of the page to the last tab.
