One of the most common mistakes by the new website owner is targeting the wrong keywords.  I will cover a few definitions and then we will dive right in to understanding how to know which keywords to target for your particular market.

The focus of your marketing campaign will be based around your Major Term Keywords.  These terms are your primary focus and will bring the highest amount of traffic to your website.  This could be organic SERP’s traffic or paid advertising.  Secondary Terms or Keyword Modifiers are the terms that will be related to your major terms but not your primary focus.  There are also keywords known as the Long-Tail, which are terms that are searched for less and not worth targeting with a specific campaign.  However, if done right, Long-Tail terms are great for increasing targeted traffic (I’ll cover that at another time).

Brainstorming – The very first step in doing proper keyword research is to brainstorm a massive “Seed List” from which all of your keywords will be selected.  For instance, if you are selling SEO Services (which I am, and I’m giving you an example of how to use a major term), then you will want to list everything that has anything to do with search engine optimization.  So my list includes the following: seo, search engine optimization, seo services, seo consultant, seo company, professional seo, seo guy, seo specialist, etc..

You will also want to think in terms of how your product answers questions in your market.  How does it solve a problem?  What does it do?  What is it used for?  You may want to think about specific keywords such as product terms, category terms, brand names, features/benefits, related terms, etc.

Your goal here is to simply generate a massive list.  It doesn’t need to be too difficult and you don’t have to overthink it, just build a big list.

Collecting Search Counts – After you have generated your list it’s time to make sense of it all.  Choose your favorite keyword tool (Wordtracker, Google, Keyword Universe, etc.) and start getting the counts for all of the terms.  It’s best to stick with one tool so you have consistent counts on all your terms.  We are going to list all of your keywords in a spreadsheet from most searched to least searched.

Make a spreadsheet with five columns.  The headings for all of your columns will be as follows: Search Term, Count, Relevance, Weighted, Entry URL 1, Entry URL 2.

Now drop in all your terms into the list.  The easiest way to do it is to download a .csv file and insert it straight into your spreadsheet.

Once listed, gauge the relevance of each term to your website.  If the term is “definitely” related to your website, give it a 100% in the Relevance column.  If the term is “maybe” related, give it a 50%.  If it’s “not” related, mark 0%.  Now simply carry the keyword count over into the Weighted column by multiplying it by its relevance.  So if your term gets 12,000 searches with a 50% relevance, then the Weighted count will be 6,000 (it will be 12,000 at 100%).  This will give you an accurate reading for how much traffic the keyword really brings.

You will now have a wonderful list with accurate counts for each keyword term.  Focus the majority of your effort on the terms that bring the most relevant, weighted traffic to your website!  You may be tempted to go after the “less competetive” terms, but don’t fall into that trap.  Why are they less competetive?  Because they won’t bring the traffic!  Go to where the people are.  There are excellent strategies for bringing in the less competetive terms, but your focus should be on the highest weighted relevant keywords, and we’ll cover how to get the rest of the terms later.

Enjoy!  More to come soon!

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