This article is not aimed at the advanced level reader here folks. I talk to many people that don't even spend a passing thought on the KW/P research - this posting is written to give the reader a foundation - not as an advanced guide. Of course, this being an in-exact science, there could be some gems in here for the ragged SEO warriors as well.

For a while now, I have been intending to give my perspective on Keyword/Phrase ( KW/P ) research and targeting. Why? Because I think it is an essential if not mandatory part of any SEO campaign. Each and every term you target will have a cost associate with it. This is where the rubber meets the road. In simplest terms, if I spend $500 on link building, $200 on content creation, $100 on site adjustments then I am looking at $800 invested. Once we reach the desired ranking, how long will it take to recoup that cash (including ongoing maintenance). In short, where is the ROI and what is the ‘break even’ point? That is a very simplistic example, but hopefully you get the idea.

Simply aiming to be #1 on Google is foolhardy since some terms contain little reward (traffic). Remember, cash that gets tied up chasing non-performing terms is money that could have been used elsewhere in your marketing endeavors. So, this is certainly an important step in the SEO process. Mistakes here can be very costly later on and in the over-all ‘big picture’ that is the sites financial health.

Targets – there are basically 2 types of keyword/phrase targets (KWP) – Money terms and Long Tail. The money terms are always the toughest ones to achieve but bring the most (organic) traffic. Your long-tail terms are generally searches that produce less traffic, but are easier to obtain and cater to a more specific searcher model.

Which is better? Neither really. There are those that believe there is big money in the long tail and those that only believe in chasing ‘money terms’. I think you should try and own each and every possible target in your industry/market – take them all baby!! (ahem .. I get excited). I would caution that some terms may never produce enough traffic to cover their cost nor warrant effort used in obtaining them… so some restraint and research is important.

Finding Terms to research – there are plenty of KW suggestions tools around ( list to come later) – but generally speaking you can find many ideas simply searching for the core target term(s) and seeing what you come up with as well as looking at top competitors/authority sites in your market. That will generally get you close to the starting gate for your core money terms. I find those are generally not hard to find. Where the tools can come in is finding the less competitive and long tail targets. There are tools and KW suggestion resources to help broaden your starting list.

 Another trick is to search with the '*' to get some idea of what terms/phrases will come up preceding the core term. Such as - http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=*+widgets

Searcher Intent – if I were a set of keys, where would I hide. I say that one a lot. You have to try and think like the end user/demographic of your market or find some one that can. Try to sort out some logical searches that some one may carry out to find you. Many times, this exercise produces some unknown – less obvious gems. If you have a brick and mortar location ask your consumers how they would search your product – use any advantage you have available.

Conversion potential – some terms may actually bring more browsers than buyers. Site about ‘jaguars’ will generally have a certain amount of browsing traffic compared to a term such as ‘buy, Jaguar, Boston’ will, since this searcher is pre-qualified to a certain extent. Obviously the previous term (jaguar) would bring the lions-share of traffic to capitalize on it is an unfair example; I merely used an obvious example for distinction. This model can be broken down to a tighter destinction such as 'free ebook' to 'free ebooks' which in this case, one is far more lucrative in reality than the other. The point being that certain terms that are closely related can produce varied results depending on the ultimate ‘intent’ of the site from a conversions perspective.

Time for some Homework;

Competition – there is no easy way, or single way to research the competitiveness of a term. There are plenty of ratios and KEI (keyword effectiveness index) type of tools around… problem with that is it gets cloudy on the ‘competition’ factor. Some tools use the total results (instances) from a given search engines, while others use the quotations (“”) to tighten up the results and so on. Secondly, many tools (such as WordTracker, NicheBot etc..) have a metric for ‘searches per month’ – unfortunately most of these aren’t based on Search Engines rather than in-house data…. We don’t get Google or Yahoo data straight up from any of the commonly available tools. So once again the data is polluted from the outset.

There is a certain degree of educated guessing when it comes to deciding just how competitive a target is and how difficult it will be to attain. The nature of the search indexes is change. As they change we adapt, no single method or tool can account for that. You will always be required to make decisions in the process; as it is with most aspects of business in an ever-evolving world. You will have to think.

Some ways of looking at the competitive nature of a given term are;

1. Total instances – simply search the term http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=blue+widgets
2. In quotations – using “”  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=%22blue+widgets%22
3. Using the inurl: or allinurl: operator – allinurl http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=allinurl%3Ablue+widgets
4. Using the intitle: or allintitle: operator http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=allintitle%3Ablue+widgets
5. Using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool – as it is highly likely that the cost of a target will be directly related to it’s effectiveness.
6. Looking at a sampling of the top10-20 sites to establish the nature of their authority, on site SEO and link profile. How tough are they?

 I can’t stress the last one enough. Some times the top 10 are attainable, other times the top 10 for a given term can be very well cemented in there, in comparison to other money terms. Often manually checking out the competition, internally and externally, is the only way to gauge exactly how tough they are going to be to knock out of there.

There is a pretty cool tool for researching from Google search modifyers called - Google Advanced Search Tool - it has some other parameters as well.

Relevance – I couldn’t propagate the obsession I have with this area without mentioning that your research will also afford you the opportunity to collect semantically related terms, phrases and concepts. These are the terms that while related to your money and long tail terms, aren’t viable candidates for actual targeting. These can be used within the content of the site and target pages as well as for varying anchor text for link building programs. I find it a great idea to track these during the KWP research process as they can come in handy later on down the road when doing on-page and content creation work.

Reality - The goal is to find terms that most closely define or target the subject/theme of the website. Build upon the content you already have or terms you already rank reasonably for.  - BUT - Not all Top 10s were created equal. A top 10 ranking for a term that doesn’t produce traffic can be frustrating and a huge waste of time and money. This isn’t about ego and saying ‘ I rank top 10 for X ‘ it is about garnering traffic. It will generally take time to achieve the money terms, so spend that time chasing long tail terms and generating traffic via other marketing channels Patience is a virtue some times with rankings that are viable.

Analytics – One important tool is the sites analytics. First look for terms that people are already finding your site with. This is a great place to start especially if there is room for improvement with the rankings of popular search referrers to your site. Often you can tighten up these terms (primary and secondary alike) with little effort.

You should always have an analytics application running on your site to watch not only what search referrers you are getting, but where they are coming from and what volume of traffic is being generated by a given term. This will help teach you the valuation for the targets you are after. Also, knowing which terms and pages visitors come from, you can target lesser related terms (long tail) that compliment what the end user is (potentially) interested in.

Seasonal – is your business seasonal? Some terms perform differently in different seasons, from construction to retail goods, there are some terms that have a ‘seasonal’ element.

Geo-targeting - The gang at Search Engine Land recently published a few tidbits on  Geo Targeted Keyword Strategies - Part I and Part II

Tools – there are plenty of tools but beware! Never trust a single data source as it can skew the perspective on what is going on. I tend to use a variety of methods, and a variety of tools to establish the data to make my decisions on.

WordTracker - Keyword Discovery - NicheBot - Keyword Intelligence - WordZe -

KW Discovery Free Tool - WordTracker Free Tool - Google suggest - Nxplorer -

Those are the main tools, but some actually cost $$$. I will give you some that may or may not peak your interest. I really don’t use many of these - so they're in no paticular order. They may help U though :0)

NicheWatch - SEO Book KW Research tool - DigitalPoint KW Suggestion Tool - SpyFu - SEO Digger -Keyword Analyzer -iWeb tools Suggestion tool -SEO Chat Suggest  and Here -

Once again, I don’t get big into tools as they are based upon a limited set of data sources. Much of it one learns to do themselves. There is no exact science to this.

If you have a particularly interesting tool you feel should be on the list – let me know.