If you are just beginning you SEO campaign then you are probably going through the process of selecting your keywords. There are several different types of keywords and you need to make sure you split your list in order to target you campaign. The aim of this article is to give you some information on how to structure your keyword list.
Selecting Your Keywords
The first thing you need to do is get a keyword universe together and this can be done by following the below steps:
1. Brainstorming - First you need to come up with some keyword ideas. You can do this by thinking what you would use to search for your business. Also ask your friends a family what they would use to get an initial list together.
2. Check your competitors - Try searching in Google for the keywords you have thought of and see what your competitors are using. To do this, go to your competitors home page and right click to get a menu and then select “View Source Code”. You will then be able to see their meta keywords at the top of the code. This may give you some ideas that you did not think about.
3. Use a Tool - In order to make your keyword universe as long as possible you can use a tool to get even more words. We would recommend the Google keyword tool which will find a long list of possible keywords for you.
Splitting Your Keywords
Now that you have a long list of keywords you need to think about splitting them down into different sections. Below is a list of how the categories to split your keywords into:
1. Broad Keywords - These are usually generic words to your industry. They will probably be one word phrases and are general. The people that search for these terms will may just be looking for general information on your industry. You will usually find that these terms will be highly competitive and will take a long time to optimize for.
2. Targeted Keywords - These are generally 2 or 3 word phrases. They will be more specific to your industry and what you are trying to do. In addition you will find that these keywords still have high traffic volumes as well as reasonably competition. You may find that although these are target they will still capture a lot of information gatherers.
3. Highly Targeted Keywords - These are often referred to as the Long Tail of search. These tend to be long phrases that are highly targeted. You may find that they have low traffic number but that the people searching for these phrases are probably looking to buy. Also as the phrases are longer there is less chance that people are trying to get to the top for these phrases and so you can often see low competition for this type of phrase.
Your Strategy
Now that you have split your keywords you will be able to begin your optimization. The best way to approach you campaign is to begin with long tail phrases and gradually move out to the broad phrases. You may find that the more broad terms appear within you long tail phrases and so as you work on the long tail you will also be working on the broad terms. Work your way out and gradually increase you traffic as you appear for more and more terms.
