If Google is the heartbeat (of user search), then keywords are the lifeblood–and almost everything else.
Nothing moves until something is sold, they say. In the same fashion it relates to sales, searchers can only find what is available on websites via keywords/phrases. Nothing is found online without proper keyword to content strategy applied. And that’s often the most challenging part of internet marketing.
Not trying to be cute here, but I come across this conundrum often with clients. Almost all webmasters want to optimize their sites for keywords they “think” or “guess” they should use, and I learn that it’s because most don’t have a way to:
- Find out what they should be using in the first place and what actually works.
- Discover what keywords to apply, since competitive data doesn’t exist.
OK, how to find out the secrets?
Start by looking at this overview article, and then come back and read the steps below. It should make a pretty complete starter pack of competitive keyword research for both organic and mostly paid advertising, pay per click (which is reflected below).
Steps to keyword domination in your space:
STEP 1:
Head over to keycompete.com. It has more than 130 million websites and keywords collected.
I typed “web hosting” and got these results:
At this point, it’s really just up for the pickin’… Locate your top competitors (top domains are ranked by: A. Coverage [Adwords, Yahoo!, MSN], and B. How high they are ranked).
STEP 2:
I selected my favorite hosting company, godaddy, and received further drill-down of keywords at time of writing:
Best of all, I can export all the keywords (More than 1,000 of them) to Excel and analyze further. I could add columns of notes and additional research data points (for example, how many times per month they are searched for), etc. The rankings show how they are performing for each keyword.
From a quick five- to 10-minute session, I now have the top keywords Godaddy is using for its paid search campaigns. Pretty neat.
You can try the service for a day at $19, monthly for $39 or yearly (my choice) at $299.
It could mean a big boost to strategic keyword decisions, and competitive edge for PPC keyword bidding and branding opportunities in 2008.
STEP 3:
Godaddy’s watch lists are really cool. They act as a keyword alert system (think ticker symbol watches for the stock market) by “watching” rising, falling, new, top and dropped keywords over time. Quite useful, and you don’t have to worry about it: Godaddy takes care of it for you. You also can continue clicking on the keywords, and the system will cross-reference to see who else is “owning” terms in paid search and drill down further. Awesome.
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ULTIMATE Guide to Search Engine Optimization
