What are your Secondary Keyword Phrases?

After using KeywordDiscovery or WordTracker, you should have a list of phrases that
do not have as high of a search (traffic) number as your Primary Keyword Phrase but
are nonetheless also relevant. These are your Secondary Keyword Phrases that,
while also highly relevant to your website or business, are not searched on as
frequently as your Primary Keyword Phrase.

Using the example above, here are some Secondary Keyword Phrases for “house
plans”:

Secondary Keyword Phrases:           “home plans”
                                     “home designs”
                                     “houseplans”

Secondary Keyword Phrases should also be used on your site, just not as frequently
as your Primary Keyword Phrase.

You should also have several other phrases that represent more specific or refined variations to your Primary Keyword Phrase. These phrases will be used on your specific product or service pages

You should also have several other phrases that represent more specific or refined
variations to your Primary Keyword Phrase. These phrases will be used on your
specific product or service pages.

For example, let’s use a website that sells house plans online:

Primary Keyword Phrase: “house plans”
Specific variations:    “country house plans”
                        “luxury house plans”
                        “Cape Cod house plans”

Notice how the Primary Keyword Phrase is contained within the more specific
phrases? This is the ideal situation.

Do not try to go after very broad, generic keywords or single words. Those
days are over, won by those that started the SEO game years ago and those that
have deep pockets. Realistically, how difficult do you think it would be to get a top
ranking for, say “computers”, “mortgages”, “cars”, “travel”, or “insurance”? You’d be
competing with millions of other web pages and with websites that are eons more
established. So you go for the niches for your riches

What is your Primary Keyword Phrase?

After using KeywordDiscovery or WordTracker, you should have a great list of
keyword phrases. Ideally, you have a single keyword phrase that sticks out from the
rest that best represents the category of service, product, or information your website
provides. This is your Primary Keyword Phrase and is the one phrase that will be
included on all your web pages, particularly on your home page.

In general, this will be your most generic and most competitive phrase, thus it will
also be the most difficult to rank well for.

Pay attention to the word form. See whether the plural form or the singular form of a keyword phrase has a higher Search number. This is important as one form of your word will be more important than another

Don’t get hung up on KEI. Don’t focus too much on the KEI value that
KeywordDiscovery or WordTracker provides for keywords. KEI by itself is a very
general indicator of competition. It's primary value is in identifying some of the "low-
hanging" secondary and tertiary search phrases that you should be able to optimize
for fairly easily. So if the high-KEI phrase fits your site, you should optimize for it.

Just because a relevant keyword phrase may have a real low KEI number (like 0)
doesn't mean you should ignore it, ESPECIALLY if it is has a high Search value.
Don’t be discouraged by a large number of competing pages, you may have less true
competition than you think.

Export your results to Excel. KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker allows you to
export your research results to Excel, where you can then easily sort (and resort) the
data any number of different ways. I highly encourage you to do this.

Both these tools offer you to store keyword Projects online. I find this feature
somewhat limiting and typically don’t use them. I’d rather store my data offline on my
computer for more advanced manipulation.

Select Overture in Results (WordTracker only). When using WordTracker, I select
Google and Overture (bought by Yahoo) in the Competition Search. This is an
important feature that WordTracker has. The Overture bid prices are a great indicator
of how coveted a given keyword phrase is in the marketplace. Some keyword
phrases are so competitive that one can only get traffic from them by going the pay-
per-click (PPC) route. The more expensive the keyword in Overture, the more prized
it is. By looking at Google and Overture at the same time, it allows you to weigh the
Search values against the PPC Bid price for a better determination of the “market
value" of a given keyword phrase.

So how do you determine which keywords are most important and relevant for your website? There are two main methods, as follow

1. By using an online keyword tools. The gold standards are KeywordDiscovery
   (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com) and WordTracker
   (http://www.wordtracker.com). Do this first and spend time doing it right.

2. By analyzing your website traffic statistics. Do this later over time to validate the
   results of method 1 and to find new keywords.


Using Keyword Research Tools

KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker are online keyword research tool that find all
possible variations and permutations of search phrases, including synonyms and
common misspellings that people have actually entered into search engines to find
sites similar to yours. In addition, they will tell you how many people have actually
used that particular search term over time. There are no other programs currently
available that offer this much information. There are other tools out there, like the
Overture or AdWords Keyword Suggestion tools, but they aren’t near as accurate or
as robust and are not recommended for this purpose. Indeed, KeywordDiscovery
and WordTracker have been the better-kept secrets for increasing relevant, targeted
traffic to websites by analyzing the true search habits of people on the Internet.

Until KeywordDiscovery came around, I used WordTracker exclusively. Now I use
KeywordDiscovery as my primary keyword tool as it as a larger and more accurate
data set than WordTracker, and better export features. However, WordTracker has
several unique features not available in KeywordDiscovery. I encourage you to sign
up for either one or both. Each costs about $50 per month, which is a pittance for the
wealth of data you will receive. I use both of them on a daily basis.

Before you use KeywordDiscovery or WordTracker, you should first brainstorm and
make a list of all possible words and phrases that you think a customer may use to
find those products, services, or information that you are offering on your site. Don’t
include industry jargon, acronyms, or buzzwords that only experts in your industry or
marketers would know. Think like your customer. This is an important distinction to
keep in mind.

There simply is no better way to research the best keywords to use for your website.
You can also use these tools to estimate beforehand how much traffic you can
potentially expect to receive so it is an invaluable tool for general business research.

Step-by-step use of these tools is beyond the scope of this book. I encourage you to
read the manuals and become acquainted with the interface and learn how to use
these tools effectively. With that said, here are a few pointers I’ve learned over time.

Keyword Research & Analysis

This is where your most important efforts begin. Do not skip the tasks in this
chapter as they form the foundation of your entire effort. It is critical that you
research and determine the most important and relevant keywords for your website.

Time spent upfront in this endeavor will reap great rewards later. If you fail to
complete this important step, your chance for a top ranking is greatly diminished.


So What Are Keywords?

In the context of the Web, a keyword is a term that a person enters into a search
engine to find specific information. Most people enter search phrases that consist of
between two and five words. Such phrases may be called search phrases, keyword
phrases, query phrases, or just keywords, but they all mean the same thing.

Your most important keywords are those best and most relevant search phrases
you want your website to be found for on a search results page in Google. Good
keyword phrases are specific and descriptive. It is better to have 100 highly-qualified
visitors who find your site listed in Google under a particular search phrase than to
have 1,000 visitors who find your site listed under a generic search phrase and then
aren’t that interested in what you offer once they get to your site.

Important: Your ultimate objective shouldn’t be just to get lots of traffic to your site
from high rankings (although this is important), but instead should be to get a high
sales conversion. Having a #1 listing in Google means nothing unless you can
convert visitors to your website into satisfied customers or have them at least take a
next desired action like filling out a form.

The more targeted and specific your chosen keywords are, the greater the chance
that visitors to your site will find what they are looking for. You want a high “click-to-
sales” or high “visitors-to-customers” ratio. As such, you need to start thinking like
your customers. Determine what it is that they need, what problems they have, and
what solutions you can offer to help them

How old the site is, how old individual web pages are, and how old links to a site are. In general, the older the site and the older a link is, the better. So don't wait unnecessarily before launching a new site, a new page or obtaining new links to your site

Put simply, to rank well on Google, you need to optimize your website for your best
keywords, get as many important and relevant sites to link to your site as you can,
make sure the text of those links contain your best keywords, and don't do anything
that looks "excessive", "unnatural", “manipulative” or “spammy” to Google. Keep it
looking natural and act as if the search engines didn’t exist.

Important: You should also read the Google Patent Papers. In them are additional
factors that Google may look at in determining rankings. For more information, see
Appendix C for the link.

So let’s continue by looking at the foundation of SEO in the next chapter – keyword
research, analysis, and selection.