Keyword Suggestion Tools

Keyword Suggestion Tools

There are a variety of tools on the web that do a good job of helping you find which keywords get searched for and how frequently they are searched for. I will cover a variety of them, although if you use the free SEO Book Keyword Research tool and the Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool, you probably do not need to spend money on any of the other tools.

I typically use keyword suggestion tools just to help find common phrases and common modifiers. I do not look at the search volume numbers on any of them as being quantitative, just qualitative. This is especially true when you consider that much of the relevant search traffic is going to be three-, four-, and five-word queries, and you might not think of which ones may not show up on any of these tools.

My tool is a free keyword research tool based on the Overture search term suggestion tool. My keyword research tool pulls keyword data from Overture and then provides links to many related tools. When you first look at it the tool may look a bit overwhelming, but all it does is make it easy to cross reference all the best keyword tools on the market and the related search results for each term. My tool has about a dozen columns. Above are the first half dozen or so.

At the bottom of the keyword search results it also links to blog search, news search, tag search, and some other vertical search types to help you find related content, resources, and ideas to write about. This can prove exceptionally useful if you need one or two more resources to reference to prove a point or complete an article.

I created a free video explaining how my tool works: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4731142191695956676.

Please don’t hate me for my need to improve my video skills though.

Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool

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

To the right end of my tool, I link to the Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool. Google’s tool is free to use.

On top of suggesting related keywords to a word you enter, they also can spider your site or a competing site or page and return a keyword list based on what they

think a page is about. It is exceptionally valuable to get feedback from the leading search engine about what they think your site is about.

Since Google has more search volume than anyone else, the odds of them recommending frequently searched, high-value terms are pretty good.

This tool approximates competition and gives twelve months of historical data. At the top of the inserted image you can see that they allow you to sort through different datasets, which include keyword popularity, advertiser competition level, and cost-per-click estimates. They also make it easy to add keywords to a spreadsheet that you can use to organize your SEO or pay-per-click advertising campaigns.

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Common Keyword Problems

Common Keyword Problems

There are a few common problems with keyword selection:

•      Some people use their internal corporate catch phrases versus focusing on what people actually search for.

•    Sometimes words have a more commonly used different meaning that elevates the estimated traffic and competition level without actually bringing in any more sales. This especially holds true for shortened words (examples: pics, cams).

•     Some people use really generic words that are not very relevant and are extremely competitive. Optimizing my site for search engine would be a good example of this. Lots of competition to attain traffic disinterested in my services.

Keyword Selection is a Balancing Act

You want the words to be descriptive enough for you to qualify the person and describe your product. You also want the search term to be general enough to be something that is frequently searched for. The definition of “frequently” changes depending on industry and the value of a lead, but common sense should help guide you in finding what keywords are the right ones to target. Sales usually are far more important than just the quantity of traffic you get. The power of keywords is in their precise targeting.

Sure you can list well for a really long search term that is present only on your site, but you want it to be something your prospects are searching for. On the flip side, it is usually hard to list for a single word such as outsourcing. Selecting keywords is a balancing act. Most good keywords are two to five words long.

Use your home page to target a primary keyword and use the other pages to target other keyword phrases. The keyword phrases targeted on each page should also be terms that describe the contents of that page and terms that are likely to yield conversions.

Frequently Asked Questions

A great way to find targeted prospects is to find what ideas and concepts are important to them in the buying cycle. Why do they buy? Why did they choose you? What are common questions they may have during the buying cycle?

You can create a page focused around each of the common buying questions to show up in the search results when people are about to buy and are focused on those ideas. Answer the questions as best you can and then place your ads or call to action near the answer.

Ignoring Keyword Research? When to

For some pages, like customer support pages, it makes sense to optimize them for the problems people might have with your products, but you want to make sure that in the attempts to optimize the pages you do not hurt the readability. Not every page needs optimized for keywords. Others may be optimized more for client usability or linkability.

If you can spread a great idea that other people will link to and reference, then that is a good thing. Sometimes you can get keywords in great article headlines, but if making the title keyword rich means that few people will link to it, then I suggest choosing to go with the story that spreads over the story that ranks. You could always go back and change the title later after the story spreads

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Keyword Selection Tips

Keyword Selection Tips

The goal of keywords is to choose terms that will bring well-targeted traffic to your website. Each page on your site can be targeted for a few different keyword phrases. Typically I like to just do about one to two primary phrases and, at most, two to three secondary phrases.

Overlapping Keyword Phrases

It makes sense to optimize the same page for keyword phrases that share some of the same words. A page that ranks well for search engine marketing should easily be able to rank well for professional search engine marketing or search engine marketing services.

Only Use a Few Keyword Phrases per Page

A note of caution--you cannot optimize a page for 20 different keywords. As you add more keywords to the mix, you lessen the focus of the page. The page can start to sound robot-created if you optimize for too many terms. Remember that converting eyeballs is what matters. People are not likely to link to or buy from a page that reads like rubbish.

Misspelled Keywords

You usually do not want to use misspelled keywords in your body copy or page title on sites you want to do well long term as they will look somewhat unprofessional. But a large volume of search queries are misspelled, and that market is easier to compete in than the core related keywords.

Some sites use “Did you mean…” pages, focusing the page title and heading tag on the misspelled versions of the keyword and then underneath it say “Oftentimes Internet searchers searching for xxx misspell the word as blah or blah. If you are looking for xxx you are in the right place. Learn more about our blah blah blah…”

Search spelling correction will get more sophisticated over time. Search engines want to correct for misspellings in the search results pages before the users get to your site. I spoke with a search engine product manager who stated that misspellings can flag pages for relevancy reviews and usually misspellings for SEO are not recommended for most websites.

If you are using throw-away domains in competitive environments, then misspellings might help you get some targeted traffic without requiring as much effort. Also, if you have a community-driven site, it will naturally include many misspellings from various bad-spelling authors.

About.com includes “common misspellings” in their page copy in a way that does not sound or seem spammy. On definition pages they define a word, give its pronunciation, link to related resources, have a section called “also known as,” and a section titled “common misspellings.”

Many of About.com’s sections are probably more useful to bots than humans, but they help draw in traffic. Their site is established enough and the format is legitimate enough that few people question it.

There is no right or wrong way to play misspellings, just risks versus rewards. Consider your brand strength, your goals, and how legitimate you can make the misspelling usage look.

As an example of a creative way to play with misspellings, if you want your page to look professional but want to get misspellings in the page copy, maybe you can target that keyword on a page with consumer feedback, and leave misspelled consumer feedback yourself.

Plural Keyword Versions

Some search engines use stemming, but usually the search results for singular and plural search phrases are at least slightly different. It is recommended that you optimize for common versions of your popular keywords, while occasionally using other versions of the words throughout your copy.

Capitalized Keywords

Most major search engines are not case sensitive. Cars is typically treated the same way as cars.

Hyphenated Keywords

Most search engines treat hyphens as a space. E-mail is different than email. If a word is split in half by a hyphen then you should check to see which version is used more frequently and optimize for whatever versions are commonly searched upon.

If one version of a term is more commonly searched for but is hyper-competitive, it may make sense to optimize for the less competitive term first.

If a hyphen is sometimes placed between two words, then using either version (with or without a hyphen) will cause your page to rank better for both versions.

Localized Keyword Research

People use different terminology in different countries. In the U.S., we want taxi cabs. In London, they look for a car hire. Make sure that if you are not from the country of your target market, you know what words are commonly used to describe the products or services you are promoting there. It is typically also important that your copy sounds local if you are targeting local markets.

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Why Focusing on Keyword Density

Why Focusing on Keyword Density

Why Focusing on Keyword Densityis a Waste of Time

About half of all search queries are unique. Many of the searches that bring visitors to your sites are for keyword phrases you never would have guessed. If a site is not well-established, most search traffic will be for long, multiword search phrases.

When webmasters start thinking about keyword density, many of them tend to remove descriptive modifiers and other semantically-related terms. Since some of those terms will no longer appear on the page, the “optimized” site no longer ranks well for many queries.

People write, search, and use language in similar ways. Thus, if you write naturally, you are going to be far better optimized for long-tail searches than some person who wastes time on keyword density will be.

If the content sounds like it was designed for engines instead of people, then less people are going to want to read it or link to it.

Internal-Speak

A major cell phone company refuses to use the terms cellular phone or cell phone on their site because, in their words, “We don’t just sell analog phones, we sell digital phones as well. ‘Cellular’ is old technology.” In engineering-speak, ‛cellular phone’ is a phone that uses ‘cell towers’ to move voice back and forth via analog frequencies. They didn’t seem to understand that most customers refer to their mobile phone as a ‘cell phone’ or ‘cellular phone,’ and they don’t give a rip about the technology that makes the phone work.

Make sure you research how customers search. Do not rely on what the company prefers to call things.

Finding Keywords

There are many different ways to find keywords for your website. Some good keyword ideas are the following:

•       Words people would search for to find your product

•       Results from data mining your site-level search information if you have a site-level search.

•     Mind map problems your prospective customers may be trying to solve with your product or service (even if they do not know you exist)

•       Keyword tags on competitors’ websites

•       Visible page copy on competitors’ websites

•       Related search suggestions on large search engines (such as Ask or Yahoo!)

•       Related term suggestions at smaller engines such as Gigablast, Vivisimo, Become.com,  and Snap

•    Keyword groupings via tools such as Google Sets or the MSN clustering technology preview

•      Lexical FreeNet: helps find related terms and ideas using a large database of related terms (this is well beyond the scope of needs for most people trying to do SEO)

•       Tag Cloud: Tag Cloud is a free folksonomy tool showing related terms. If your product name or brand are related to other common terms in your market, then you are doing a good job working your brand into the semantic language. For example, when I search Yahoo! for seo book, sometimes they show a see also result for seo book aaron. Sometimes Yahoo! recommends seo book when I search for seo.

•       Keyword suggestion tools, which are covered in the next section

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What are Keywords?

Keywords

What are Keywords?

Keywords are phrases under which you would want your website to be found in search engines. Keywords are typically two-to-five-word phrases you expect people to search for to find your website. Oftentimes, corporate climates force people to refer to things using special phrases. Keywords are not about what you call your stuff. Keywords are what Joe average surfer (or your prospective site visitors) may type in a search box.

How do You Learn Best?

Some people learn better from video than from reading text. If you like video, you may prefer to look at the Dan Thies keyword research video he mentions near the end of his post on this page:

Focusing a Keyword

When people tell you to target the word free, they are out of their minds. That single word is too general and has too much competition. I just did a search on

Yahoo! for free and it returned 749,000,000 results. That is over 10% of the web trying to use free as a sales pitch.

I am not saying that free should not be on your page; it is a compelling offer on many of mine. I am saying that keywords should define the product or idea. Free alone just does not get this done.

Keyword Phrases

If free isn’t a keyword, then what is? Keywords are typically two-to-five-word phrases you expect people to search for to find your website. What would you expect people to type in the browser to find your site? If you were looking for your product, what would you type? What types of problems does your product or service solve? Those answers are likely good keyword phrases.

Keyword Length

A longer search phrase is typically associated with better targeting and increased consumer desire. Some people say shorter keyword searchers are shoppers and longer keyword searchers are buyers.

As you add various relevant descriptive copy to pages, you are more likely to appear in search results similar to your keywords that do not exactly match your more generic root-term keywords. Most good keyword phrases are generally two to five words.

Keyword Value Pyramid

One of the most fatal flaws of many SEO campaigns is that people think they need to rank well for one term or a few generic terms. Generic terms may occasionally convert, but most strong-converting search terms are specific.

If you read SEO forums you often hear many posts about something like a San Diego real estate agent no longer ranking for a generic term such as real estate. Since the term is too generic for most of his target market (and his service would not be fitting for most people searching for that term), it makes sense that search engines would not want to show his site in those search results. As search continues to evolve, it will get better at filtering out untargeted or inappropriate sites.

Targeting generic terms outside of your area means that you need to use aggressive techniques to try to rank. There are several problems that can go along with being too aggressive:

•       Targeting exceptionally generic terms may not add much value, since the leads are not strongly qualified. Paying extra to rank for more generic terms may not be a cost that is justified unless you can resell those leads at a profit.

•       Being exceptionally aggressive raises your risk profile and makes your site more likely to fluctuate in rankings when new search algorithms are rolled out.

•       Some of the best value is at the bottom of the keyword pyramid. If you spend too much time focused too broadly on the top you may miss some of the exceptional value on the bottom. 

Keyword Density (KD)

Keyword density analyzers end up focusing people on something that is not important. This causes some people to write content that looks like a robot wrote it. That type of content will not inspire people to link to it and will not convert well.

In March of 2005, Dr. Garcia, an information retrieval scientist, wrote an article about keyword density. His conclusion was “this overall ratio [keyword density] tells us nothing about:

•       the relative distance between keywords in documents (proximity);

•       where in a document the terms occur (distribution);

•       the co-citation frequency between terms (co-occurrence);

•       or the main theme, topic, and sub-topics (on-topic issues) of the documents.

Thus, KD is divorced from content quality, semantics, and relevancy.”

Later on I will discuss how to structure page content, but it is important to know that exact keyword density is not an important or useful measure of quality.

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Maximum Analytics

Maximum Analytics

Create a Baseline

Many web hosts maintain free server logs which show you what pages were most frequently requested and what keywords people searched for to find them or what pages site visitors came from. In addition to web hosts, many analytics products like Google Analytics, Clicktracks, and HaveAMint.com are available for reasonable prices.

If you run a commercial site you can also use Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter to buy traffic for your site. If you track what keywords convert that will help you know what types of keywords you should be focusing on with your organic SEO campaign.

Rank Checkers

There are a number of free rank checkers and commercial rank checkers applicatations available (like Agent Web Ranking and Advanced Web Ranking) that check your rankings for keywords in major search engines.

It is easy to get lost worrying about shifts in rankings, but what matters more is if your traffic streams are growing as your site matures and you market it.

Some of the major search engines like Google and Microsoft are sharing data with webmasters about what keywords their sites rank for and what keywords send traffic to their sites. You can sign up for Google Webmaster Central for a look at this type of data.

Building From Your Strengths

Seeing what you already rank for is useful because it helps you understand the mindset of consumers finding your site. It is easier to rank for keywords related to the words you are already ranking for than it is to rank for entirely different phrases.

Learning what types of sites reference you and why they chose to reference you helps you learn how to create marketing ideas that are more likely to spread.

If you track your growth and what has been working well for you then it makes it easy to keep pushing things that have worked well for you in the past and focus less on things that provide little to no return.

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Writing for Search Engines

Writing for Search Engines

Finally…What was all that other junk? What do the spiders want to see? What are the best words to use? Where do I place them?

Don’t worry, the above chapters are not a complete wash. The more you learn about the web, the more you will learn how ideas overlap. Good usability is usually equal to good search engine optimization.

Some people stress search engine optimization so much that they forget about their visitors’ needs. SEO is just one part of the site-building puzzle. Ultimately, it is your social impact or cash in the bank that is a measure of success, not where you rank for some random search query.

In the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell shows how small changes can bear amazing results. If you can learn to include some of those little extras that make your site better than your competition’s, site, you will find that others will do your marketing for you. That is why I think it is more important to understand the concepts of the web and the goals of search engines versus just learning the flavor-of-the-moment optimization. If everything else is good, then you do not need to worry as much about optimization.

Plus, knowing the above in addition to doing search engine optimization will allow you to draw lots of visitors and have a higher conversion rate. On the web, when you lose a customer, it is usually forever. The last thing you want to do is draw prospective customers into a minefield they are sure to regret.

Each and every page is a chance to capture or lose customers.

Focusing a Site & Combining Site Ideas

One time, a person contacted me asking for a bit of help with their site. They wanted me to submit their site to directories. When I looked at their site I saw it sold handmade hemp jewelry and SEO services. In the real world, you would never see people do something like this, but many people think it is fine on the web.

On the web there are even more alternatives to your business than in the real world. Because of this, you need to focus on the consumer that much more.

It is fine to have many unique ideas and revenue streams, but each site should cover its own specific niche. If you cross industries within your site, you weaken your brand and may offend many people. What are the odds that someone is looking for SEO services while shopping for hemp?

Even within the specific niche of SEO, I can have a site for linking, one for keyword research, one for pay-per-click…the list goes on. Most websites fail because they fail to properly focus, not because they are too focused.

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