Archive for Keyword Research articles

Keywords or Key Phrases?

Apr 282009

published by Gary in Copywriting | Keyword Research with 3 comments

There used to be an old saying that if you throw enough mud at the wall some of it will stick and that used to be the way people threw in keywords. Splatter enough keywords across a Home Page and some of them are sure to attract the big boys. Times and the competition have moved on since then and now it’s not enough just to work out the most relevant and most Googled keywords; now it’s how those keywords are incorporated into key phrases.

A well-optimised website will have a combination of carefully chosen keywords that combine to make popularly searched key phrases.

If people search for a steel bin or search for steel bins they will probably enter in the search box the two single key words ’steel bin’ rather than type “steel bin” with quotation marks at the beginning and end to establish the phrase – steel bin. But, there will be a few people who will know that quotation marks will find them a steel bin that is more accurately targeted.

“steel bin” in quotation marks attracts via Google about 35,000 websites and steel bin without quotation marks attracts about 300,000 websites. Therefore, by incorporating the two words < steel bins >, into a complete sentence, without quotation marks, then steel bins is recognised by search engines as a genuine phrase.

Of course, people searching for items on the Internet often misspell or mistype. It can work to your advantage to allow for common misspellings of products or services. If you enter steal bin as two separate words into Google it produces about 2.6 million websites. But if you enter “steal bins” in quotation marks, Google returns a mere 286 results on Monday, April 27. In other words, if you incorporate steal bins as a phrase within your body copy, without it appearing to be a misspelling, the result can be very effective. i.e. ‘Steel bins supplied by the Steel Bins Company at these low prices are a veritable steal. Bins provided by the Steel Bins Company are produced in a combination of brushed steel bins, matt steel bins and mirrored steel bins’.

Popularity: 36%

Rehashing Relevance

Jan 302009

published by Hannah in Keyword Research | On Page SEO | SEO with 6 comments

One of the key things in search engine optimisation is relevance. Before I discuss relevance though let me give you the dictionary definition of the word it was derived from, relevant.
relevant (adj): closely connected or appropriate to the matter at hand
Hence when talking about relevance in SEO terms what is taken into consideration is [...]

Popularity: 35%

Continue reading “Rehashing Relevance”

Making the Most of Yahoo’s Search Assist

May 192008

published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO with 4 comments

A couple of months back I posted an entry on Yahoo! Search Assist and touched on how this can help SEOs find more specific keywords they should consider optimising for. I have just been playing around and not having visited Yahoo that much lately only just noticed the great addition to search assist.
Before even after [...]

User Habits and Keyword Selection

Mar 242008

published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO with No comments

I have been posting about keyword selection in my last two posts and I thought that this would be a good time to discuss how and why you should factor in user habits when selecting keywords.
First of all I want to emphasise that internet users’ habits evolve rapidly. This is probably both a reason and [...]

Keyword Competitiveness

Mar 232008

published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO with 1 comment

On my last post I discussed how targeting keywords that are related to simple primary keywords are important, especially with the advent of Yahoo! search assist. Even without search assist though you should also give attention to more specialised keywords. Why is this?
As we all know very generic keywords, though they do have a very [...]

Related Keywords and Yahoo! Search Assist

Mar 212008

published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO | SEO Tips with 1 comment

Though Yahoo! Search Assist was launched in Yahoo! Search US back in October, Yahoo’s announcement (just a few hours ago!) of search assist being rolled out in other countries made me remember the importance of choosing your keywords.
One of the biggest mistakes you can commit in SEO is choosing only primary keywords that are too [...]

Rand on Keyword Research Data

Sep 202007

published by Gary in Keyword Research with 1 comment

It is not often that I link to other posts, but today I cannot seem to help myself.
Rand has written “An Exhaustive List of Search Engine Based Keyword Research Data“, and fairly exhaustive it is. I read quite a few blogs on a daily basis and there very few post that have me searching [...]

Effective SEO Keyword Research Analysis

Aug 242007

published by Gary in Keyword Research with 2 comments

Every SEO campaign begins with well-thought-out keyword research analysis. Focus on wrong keywords and it may take several months to get back on track, leave alone the Herculean task of re-optimising hundreds of wrongly-optimised pages. So how do you zero-in on the right keywords or keyword-combinations?
Although there are lots of free keyword-research tools available on [...]

Increase Your Traffic By Focusing On Long Tail Keywords

Aug 32007

published by Gary in Keyword Research with 11 comments

Long Tail keywords aren’t actually your conventional keywords like “web designer” or “copywriter” or “pole dancer”, they are sometimes complete sentences. For instance, a lawyer looking for a web designer for his law firm may search for “web designer for law firm” instead of merely “web designer”, or someone looking for a pole dancer in [...]