As the owner of a new online business, one of your biggest challenges is likely cash flow. Unfortunately, the only solution to this problem (besides a generous influx of investor cash) is to start driving search engine traffic and generating revenue - fast.
And herein lies the classic catch 22: you can't get your site ranking without hiring a professional SEO, yet you can't afford to pay an SEO until your site begins ranking and making money.
So, what's a startup to do?
In this post, I'll provide you with a framework for doing your own keyword research, just like the pros. I'll take you step by step through the process of finding relevant keywords and then analyzing the sites that rank highly for these terms. I'll also show you exactly which tools the pros use, and explain how you can use them to find high value keywords to incorporate into your own site.
But first, let's take a look at some important principles that will impact how you select the ideal keywords for your site.
What's in a Keyword? (aka Why Keywords Matter)
But when it comes down to it, keyword research - and the ensuing incorporation of those keywords into a site - is more about understanding and using the language and terminology your target market uses in search.
When you understand what words people are looking for, you can provide content that does a great job of covering these topics and themes.
Another important aspect of keyword research is competitive analysis. Analyzing the top-ranking sites for your keywords allows you to determine which keywords are actually realistic for your business. Without this critical step, you could find yourself wasting time and money targeting keywords that you never had a chance of ranking for.
To summarize, an ideal keyword will be:
- A word or phrase that your target market is actually using to find your products or services
- One that's popular enough to generate a steady flow of search traffic to your site
- One that's not overly competitive (otherwise you'll never have a chance of ranking for it)
The process below will provide you with a step-by-step strategy for finding keywords that meet all three of these criteria.
Step 1: Brainstorming & Industry Observation
There are a number of ways to find keywords relevant to your audience. Some are more low-tech, while others will require a bit more technical know-how. These strategies are most effective when used together.
Many valuable keywords can be found simply through the process of brainstorming. Questions you can ask yourself include:
- What products and services do I provide?
- What words might my target market be using to find these products and services? (these can be quite different from the ones you might use)
- What problems might my target market be looking to solve?
- What questions might they be asking online?
- What are some keyword variations people might use? (i.e., plurals, common misspellings, synonyms)
Another valuable technique for finding relevant keywords is to become an industry observer. Your goal will be to find out which industry-related words or phrases are commonly used in both online and offline environments. You can do this through:
- Reading trade publications
- Visiting popular blogs or websites in your niche
- Combing through industry forums to see which questions are commonly being asked
- Looking through Amazon's top-selling books in your industry to see which topics are popular right now
- Visiting social bookmarking sites like Reddit to find trending topics (you can visit subreddits.org to view trending topics by category)
You'll likely want to note each of the possible keywords you've found in a spreadsheet, as the next steps in the process will rely on what you've found to this point.
Step 2: Use Tools To Find Additional Keyword Ideas
Google Keyword Planner
The Keyword Planner is a great tool to use at the outset of your analysis. Start by plugging in words and phrases you've found through brainstorming and industry observation to see average monthly search volume as well as the level of competition for each.
Here's an example: Let's say I'm in the web design field. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the search phrase "website design for beginners" shows average monthly searches of 140, and a high level of competition. "Tutorial web design", on the other hand, shows 1,000 monthly searches and low competition.
While I likely wouldn't want to use this phrase for my homepage or other top-level pages, this may a good one to use for a blog post. Because it has a decent number of monthly searches, yet doesn't have a lot of competition, it would be relatively easy to rank for, and would generate a solid amount of traffic once it began ranking.
Ubersuggest
Finding short keywords and phrases is important, but it's also necessary to dig deeper to find longer, related phrases to use in your content. Ranking in a post-Panda world means focusing on more than just individual keywords; it necessitates focusing on themes.
This means finding out which words and phrases are often used alongside your chosen keywords. Since your goal will be to provide comprehensive coverage of your topic, you'll want to make sure you include many other keywords and phrases that are related to your primary phrase.
Many of the terms we're after should be long-tail phrases. I like to use a tool like Ubersuggest to dig a little deeper and find longer, more specific phrases. Since I've already chosen to hone in on "tutorial web design", I'll plug that into the tool to see which variations, relevant terms and long-tail phrases I can find.
Keyword Tool.io
Keyword Tool.io is another tool used by many leading SEO's to find long-tail and related keywords. Relying on Google's autocomplete feature, it gives you quick access to popular search terms that you may not think to search for in Google's Keyword Planner. While you can also manually plug keywords into autocomplete to find related terms, this tool will save you a ton of time by helping automate the process.
Google's 'Searches Related To' Feature
Not so much a tool as a strategy, Google's 'Searches Related To' feature is a great way to find long-tail and related keywords. Simply plug your keywords into search, and hit enter. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you'll find something like this:
This can provide a wealth of insight into popular search terms related to your chosen keywords.
Step 3: Analyze the Top-Ranking Sites (Competitive Analysis)
The goal of competitive keyword research is to determine how difficult it will be to rank for a particular phrase. This process will involve some hands-on investigation on your part, as well as the use of keyword research tools. You will already have gained some insights into the difficulty of your keywords when you used some of the tools above.
While keyword tools will provide you with a solid foundation for your keyword research, it's also beneficial to simply plug your desired keywords into search and take a look at the top-ranking sites. You'll want to focus on the top 5-10 results, as sites that are ranking below that aren't getting much traffic for that term anyway.
What we want to determine is how these sites got top rankings, and what we can do to outrank them. Some of the main factors we'll want to look at include:
- Age of the domain (older domains still tend to have an easier time ranking, even if only because they've had more time to accumulate inbound links)
- Quantity and quality of links to the page and domain
- PageRank
- Alexa Ranking
- Social media audience: While social signals don't have a direct impact on rankings, a site with a large social media audience will have a much easier time getting traction for their content.
Fortunately, there are a number of tools that can help automate the process of competitive analysis. Here are a few of my favorite tools and strategies for analyzing top-ranking sites.
SEM Rush
SEM Rush helps automate the process of competitive analysis by providing insights like number of backlinks, anchor text, top competitors, and organic versus paid traffic (sites with big budgets for advertising may not be worth your while).
The Keyword Difficulty Tool is perhaps the most useful of SEM Rush's suite of tools. It provides comprehensive information about the keywords you've selected, including:
- Level of difficulty
- Search volume
- Trends
- Top-ranking sites
SEO Toolbar for Firefox
This toolbar is an excellent tool for giving you easy access to metrics like PageRank, Alexa ranking, keyword difficulty, and other important competitive insights. It also provides you with WhoIs and registration information, as well as easy access to a number of popular SEO and keyword research tools.
What I love about the SEO Toolbar is that you can visit top-ranking sites and view important metrics at a glance. While it doesn't replace other keyword tools, it does provide a unique opportunity to do on-the-fly competitive research.
Allintitle Analysis
Finding out how many sites are actively targeting your chosen keywords can give you a great indication of keyword competition. Sites that just happen to rank (i.e., who aren't actively trying to rank for that term) will be far easier to outrank.
One of the quickest ways to see how many sites are actively targeting your phrase is to use the allintitle command. In our example, I would go to Google and type in allintitle:"tutorial web design" and see how many sites are actively using my key phrase in their title tag .
Here's what I find:
According to Google, there are 5,650 sites that are using this phrase in their title tags. This number will obviously be relative, but the lower the number, the easier it will be to rank.
Step 4: Use Your Chosen Keywords to Structure Your Site and Content
At this point, you should have found some high-value, low competition keywords you can incorporate into your site. In general, there are two main types of keywords I like to consider when launching a new site: top-level keywords for my homepage, category pages and navigational structure, and "quick wins" that I can use for blog posts.
Information Architecture and Keywords
When choosing keywords that you'll be using on your top-level pages, you can, generally speaking, select higher volume, more competitive phrases. These are the pages that will accumulate more inbound and site-wide links, so they will often be more likely to rank for these difficult keywords.
Not only will using these popular, lucrative keywords be great for your rankings, it will also help you make your site navigation more user-friendly, and your content more relevant.
"Quick Win" Keywords
These are keywords and phrases that tend to be longer, more specific, and therefore more relevant to your business and products. They will often be easier to rank for, and are the perfect keywords to include in informational pages and blog posts.
The absolute best way to target these keywords isn't to "target" them at all. Let me explain. You used to be able to write a relatively short piece of content targeting a specific keyword, and actually have a chance of ranking for it. Today's competitive landscape - along with Google's renewed focus on high quality content - means that your best bet of ranking is to create long-form content that does a thorough job of covering your topic.
Final Thoughts
As the owner of a startup, you're likely more interested in running your business than in doing keyword research. The reality is, however, that finding high-value keywords for your site will generate rankings, traffic, and revenue for your business for years to come.
The work you put in now will not only put you on the path toward high rankings, but to providing the best possible user experience for your site visitors. As you find keywords that your target market is looking for, you can structure your site and content in a way that increases engagement, time on site, and ultimately, conversions.
Are you in the process of doing keyword research for your startup? What are your main struggles or concerns? Share with us below!
Image courtesy of Bruce Clay under CC 2.0
