Keyword Research & Mapping

Keyword Research

• Keywords are the lifeblood of any search marketing program. It is essential that you understand the universe of keywords related to your products and services.

• From this understanding you can understand the needs, wants and intent of the searcher to more effectively map your content with their query.

Generate Keyword Review Matrix

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Keyword Related Keyword Demand Rank Data CPC Site

Search Type Comments PLP

diabetes 375,567        

diabetes supply 58,731            

Diabetes symptoms 48,148            

Diabetes diet 22,133            

Type 2 diabetes 21,393            

Diabetes mellitus 21,038            

Gestational diabetes 19,755            

Diabetes treatment 18.999            

Diabetes information 17,345            

Juvenile diabetes 17,125            

Initial KeywordResearch gives you related words

Number of searches last

month.

How is are the words performing

elsewhere

Research?Purchase?

Service?

Good word? Bad? Issues?

RecommendLanding page URL

Keyword Research Worksheet

• Brainstorm Words – Starter phrases derived from your brainstorm session, from reviewing the site content, and/or by reviewing competitors’ Web sites

• Related – Variations of the keyword phrases from the brainstorming sessions that contain the Brainstorm Word and gives us an understanding of the searchers’ language

• Searches – The relative search volume for each phrase over the past month (from one of the keyword research tools)

• Priority Keywords -- phrases for which you feel your site can and should achieve a top placement in the search engine results pages or be a focus of search marketing

• Preferred Landing Pages (PLPs) – the URLs from your site in which the Recommended Keywords match the content and those pages for which we can begin to develop optimized HTML coding recommendations

Open Excel and create a worksheet with the following headings

Brainstorming Keywords

Brainstorming words are our starting point. We take these top-level, general keyword phrases and use them as the basis of the next set of actions.

Start the process by answering the following questions:

1. Make a list of your products, services and categories of each2. What do your potential visitors search for when trying to find your

product/services/information?3. When you search for your own site, what do you search for4. What do you want to be #1 in the search results for?5. What terms are currently driving visits to your site (analytics)6. What are people searching for currently on your site? (site search)

Related Keywords

• The related keywords show us additional phrases to consider for researching and give us an insight into which phrases searchers are using.

• Sometimes a Brainstorm word does not have any related phrases. This simply means that this term is either very targeted and no one is searching for it yet, or we have not targeted the searchers’ language.

• This process is valuable in showing you if you are on target or have missed the targeted keyword market.

• You an leverage keyword research tools to add additional variations and for the next step of understanding searcher demand for each phrase.

Research Demand & Opportunity

• Leverage one of the keyword research tools to understand variations of keywords and relative search volume for each phrase.

• Use “exact” or “phrase” match to get a closer representation to a natural search query

• Results are “averages” and not exact numbers

7https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

WordTracker

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Subscription-based keyword research tool that offers a wide selection of keyword variations and relevance weightings for keywords.

- www.wordtracker.com

Keyword Discovery

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Subscription-based keyword research tool that offers a wide selection of keyword variations and relevance weightings for keywords.

Can save and recall keyword research projects

- www.keyworddiscovery.com

Google Keyword Suggestion

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Free keyword research tool that offers a wide selection of keyword variations with local and global search volume.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Keyword Results

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Select what you want and “download” to Excel or CSV

Mine your Pages for Keywords - Manually

• Review your site content for targeted keyword phrases.

• Start with general words and dig deeper to get more specific phrases that are exact matches.

Mine your Pages for Keywords - Automated

Google Keyword Suggestion tool can “review” your pages and suggest phrases based on what they detect on the page and site.

Keyword Prioritization

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Prioritization buckets words into High, Medium and Low categories

• Categories used to:• Control SOV levels on specific

segments in paid search

• Identify priority words for SEO work

• Advise content developers on best words to include in new content

AwarenessHigh Priority

“Must Have” Keywords

Medium PriorityKeywords that are important but expensive or

not targeted enough

Low Priority“Nice to haves”

• High Priority keywords get 60% of budget & effort• Medium Priority keywords get 30% of budget & effort• Low Priority keywords get 10% of budget & effort

• Ensures important words get most exposure

Keyword Selection & Prioritization

• Keyword phrases are assigned a priority. This is a relative priority and should match your business goals, opportunity and available content.

• These priorities can change many times during the process but it helps to focus effort and alignment of resources.

Map to Specific Relevant Pages

• Preferred Landing Pages (PLP’s) are used to match

keywords to the best page for that word or phrase. 16

Map Keywords to Predefined Actions Segments

• Use a brainstorming session to discuss and segment words into appropriate purchase lifecycle segments to understand how to better align messages.

• This will be very helpful later when creating ad groups and messages for PPC

Current State Performance

• Once you have your list of keyword phrases, a Keyword Ranking Report can be run to benchmark a site’s current position in the search results for these phrases.

• Knowing how well Preferred Landing Pages are ranking for associated keyword phrases puts a priority on which pages need to be audited for optimization or added to your PPC campaign.

Additional Research Tools

• Provides a graphical, relative search volume comparison.

• Enter in up to 5 search terms.

• Shows related news.• Free but not

necessarily current

Google Trends

www.google.com/trends

Google Insights for Search• Similar to Google Trends• Additional unique features

– Compare against a category– Geographic search volume

maps– Provides a relative index

measure against all searches performed on Google over time.

– Great for identifying local campaign opportunities

www.google.com/insights/search/

Keyword Spy• Wide selection of keywords• Additional unique features

– See paid and organic data– Export master list of words– Great for competitive analysis and budget planning

• Free and Subscription versions

www.keywordspy.com

Best Practices

• Brainstorm your keywords with a wide team to understand your base universe.

• Look at your content, site search data and external tools for variations

• Work to understand the intent of a searcher for each phrase and map to the appropriate page on your site.

• Repeat the process often to maximize your keyword universe.