Basically, selecting the right keywords for SEO purposes entails two steps:
- Make a list of words and phrases to choose from
- Sort everything out and come up with a short list containing the ones which you think will be most profitable.
The entire process may be time consuming and at times will be nerve-wracking. However, you can do this without having to spend a single cent.
1. Make Your Own List of Keywords
Even if you intend to utilize keyword tools, it is always good to know how to do things on your own so you will know what to expect when using the more sophisticated tools. To begin, think of any word or phrase that you feel people might actually use to find your products or services. Look everywhere – ask people for alternatives, use the dictionary and thesaurus, use the internet; use your imagination to find sources.
Ask your friends how they would search for specific things on the net. You will be surprised to find out how much you can get from them. Sometimes, people who know very little about SEO come up with some of the most brilliant keyword ideas.
You can try combining several words in your list. Always have your target audience in mind when thinking of things to add to the list. Remember that several factors such as age, country of origin, profession, and others contribute to variations in terminology or different words used to refer to the same thing. The word headset, for example, is what other people would use to refer to a headphone or an earphone.
Use Google Keyword Tool to Get More Ideas
You can use the Google database to refine the list you made. You will learn what people actually use to search for similar websites. Google’s Keyword Tool has a key advantage for non-US marketers – more trustworthy geotargeting in more languages.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
This tool is very useful in generating keyword ideas with descriptive phrases and words. To begin, just input your main keywords, select your country and language.
The keyword tool will return a list of alternative keywords and its monthly search volume for global and local.
TIP: These search figures are based on [exact match]. This means that they only include exact search results and it is more accurate figure compared with “broad match”. To do this, simply tick the [exact] box under “Match Types” at left hand bar.
Find Out How Your Competitors Do It
Like in any marketing endeavors, you may need to keep a constant eye on your competitors so you can always keep in step. The same is true in optimizing your website for search engines. If you can, why not get keyword ideas from the competition, right? For all you know, they may be doing the exact same things.
To do this, you can utilize the free Google Keyword Tool once more. Select some keyword phrases and type them into the search box. You will find the top competing websites this way. For example, if you sell car accessories, typing “car accessories” will show a list of some of your competitors.
At the top of the screenshot above, you can see the first of your competitors. Copy the URL to the clipboard and proceed to Google’s Keyword Tool. Select the option where you can generate ideas for keywords using the contents of a specific website. Paste the URL of your competitor on the applicable space. In a matter of minutes, you will find out what keywords your competitor is using.
Apply the same procedure for your other competitors in the list. In no time, your own keyword list will grow bigger after adding the keyword ideas you picked up from competing websites which you never thought of before.
Consider Spelling Variations (including spelling errors) in Your List
Some words are spelled differently in some parts of the world. If your target audience includes people from these countries, it is a good idea to consider these spelling peculiarities. Likewise, there are common spelling mistakes that people make for some specific words. Better consider them also as these errors can happen more frequently than you think.
The word business, for example, is often misspelled as “bisness”. If you are not convinced, try this yourself. Search for “home bisness”. You will get tons of results. What does this mean? A lot of people commit such mistakes in their search; and a lot of people optimize their websites by using these misspelled words. It can help improve your website traffic by doing the same.
Pretty surprising, isn’t it? The fact is, these things do happen and it is better to prepare for them. Think of words associated with your website that people might misspell or may be spelled differently in some places. This will help bring you your fair share from this otherwise lost traffic. Just add misspelled or differently spelled words to your list for the time being. You may find it necessary to use them later.
Localize Your Keywords
This is applicable if your target market is a specific demographic, community or locality. If you own a carpet cleaning business in Penang, this will be of significant help. A Penang guy looking for a local carpet cleaner would most likely type “Penang carpet cleaner” to search for one.
Optimizing your website for local users will help bring you more visitors who are specifically looking for the type of products and services you offer. If the location of your business matters, it is important to coin combinations of keywords that will include local terms and places. This will help point your target audience to the right direction – your website.
Use Keyword Variations
One way to vary your keywords is to use singular and plural forms, genders, gerund (“ing”) forms, and tenses (using “ed” for past tense). Although it may seem insignificant, it may be worth the try if it can bring a few more visitors to your site; and if these tiny variations can help add up to sales, it definitely is worth the extra effort.
For example, if you are in the business of selling inspirational books, you may want to optimize for inspiring books or inspirational book as well. Being creative in this area never hurts. You may even be able to convert some visitors this way. You can use the Google Keyword Tool to see how each variation will fare when used as search phrases.
2. Short List Your Keywords
Once you have built up a hefty and versatile list of possible keywords and phrases to use, it is time to select the ones that can really work for your business. The idea is to limit the list to the “targeted” keywords and yet possible to rank in top 10.
Search Volume
Behind each keyword phrase, there is an associated “search volume” – the search volume data that you collected from Google Keyword Tool. This is an approximation of how many times the keyword phrase is searched upon in an average month.
So, if you optimize a page around a term that has a listed search volume of 100 searches per month, you can’t expect a first page ranking to bring you much traffic. After all, you should never expect your site to receive all of the available “clicks.”
Keyword Intentionality
When choosing keywords it’s important that you try to get inside the mind of the person doing the search. You may think that the keyword phrase clearly conveys what the searcher is looking for but this is not always the case. Recognize every keyword is kind of customer.
There are many sophisticated techniques used to determine the “intentionality” of each keyword phrase but here’s a simple tip… enter the keyword phrase into the search engine you care most about and look at all of the results.
Are there a number of sponsored ads on the page? This can indicate that the keyword phrase has a “commercial intent.”
Determining Your Competition
If you want to rank on the first page for a particular keyword, you have to kick one of the current listings off! This is a fact.
Because of this, it’s important you know what it is going to take to accomplish this before deciding to optimize for the keywords. In some cases, you will find that the work will be easy and in others, near impossible. For example – “forex“, even with US$100K SEO fee, I believe no one is confident to provide top 10 guarantee in Google.com (US)!
There are several good tools available to analyze the competition in a flash, such as SEOMOZ Keyword Difficult Tool, but they are paid subscription.
What I’m going to share here is a free and manual method – do a allintitle:”keyword” on your keywords.
Example: selangor property
The number of results shown is 22,000, which mean a reasonable competition.
For SEO beginner, I would suggest to aim for keywords with competition less than 50,000.
NOTE: This is just a guideline, not a fool proof way to determine competition.
