It might seem like rocket science but, trust me, keyword research for your website is quite simple really. You just need to do a lot of it and it never actually ends.
Ok, maybe using the word ‘simple’ is a bit of a push but it sure isn’t rocket science that some would have you convinced that it is.
Of course, SEO ‘experts’ make it sound complicated but, in truth, it’s more about being extremely time consuming and never ending. You see, as soon as you ‘finish’ researching and tweaking a page (which can take days to nail it) on your website and, let’s say you end up above one of your competitors (believe me, they are watching) in the search results, they will get to work to sneak ahead of you, and so it continues.
Keyword research is never done and dusted, never over
If you have a website of a few dozen, hundreds or even thousands of pages, you will, eventually, find that people search for and find your website by hundreds (maybe thousands) of words and phrases you’d not considered. This is all revealed to you in the analytics which you can get for free from Google.
In summary, you are looking for words and phrases that actually get searched for (Google’s keyword tools can help you with this) and where the competition isn’t huge.
You could be plain sailing if you’re not in a massively competitive market or you could be up some heavy hitters with a lot of SEO going on that will almost always keep them ahead of you in the search results.
Keyword research tools are everywhere but Google is your best resource
There’s a growing market of keyword tools but the most accurate, in my opinion, is always going to be Google and it’s the one that won’t want a weekly or monthly pay to use fee. You see, Google wants you to use their products and services and wants to help you to help them give out the best search results.
Google has all the keyword data you’re likely to need unless you have extremely deep pockets and are competing tooth and nail with some big competitors.
Some industries are super competitive when it comes to search engine optimisation. Financial markets are big, insurance, double glazing, diets and, oh yes, SEO and keyword software. Even if you search for the ‘Google Keyword Tool’ in Google there’ll be paid (PPC) ads displayed above Google’s own listing for their own keyword tool.
There are no secrets in search engine optimisation and no magic formula
There’s always someone claiming to have found the golden goose, the elusive secret to winning big in SEO and, believe me, they are most likely fibbing a little bit. Secrets have all been revealed many times over and if anyone thinks they can play Google at what Google does best (search data), then they are kidding themselves.
Google’s tools give you data that they own, not data that another service has calculated. The tools at Google are also the least complicated, you’re less likely to find any abbreviations like KEI that you need to go away and, erm, Google.
Oh, that KEI abbreviation I mentioned above, it stands for Keyword Efficiency Index.