Keyword Analysis

A web page (all individual web pages) should be optimized for a particular keyword phrase.

Why?

When someone enters a phrase into a search engine, they are asking a question. The pages that return in the results are the answers that the search engine believes are best at answering the question.

The key is to create web pages that specifically answer the questions that searchers are asking. Enter keyword analysis.

Keyword analysis is a three step approach:

1) Find the questions (keyword phrases) that searchers ask about YOUR TOPIC

2) Gauging the general health of those keyword phrases – can they produce qualified traffic?

3) Can a page realistically grab part of the traffic for that keyword phrase?

Searcher’s Questions

Lets say a cooking website wants to have a section of web pages about lasagna. They enter “lasagna” into a keyword analysis tool. The results returned are a list of keyword phrases and numbers. Entirely forget the numbers at this point. Look down the list of keywords. These represent the questions searchers are asking about lasagna. Looking over the list is there a question or two that a web page could easily answer? The list contains a lot of references to lasagna recipes. Clearly, people are looking for lasagna recipes. In question form, they are asking “What are some good lasagna recipes?” Creating a web page or even a section on lasagna recipes maybe a good idea since there seems to be general interest in the topic.

Keyword Health

What is a healthy keyword?

Any keyword phrase in which there is a reasonable amount of potential traffic, relative to the industry to which the keyword is related, for a keyword of specificity.

“Lasagna” and “Lasagna Recipes” have the most generous numbers in terms of traffic. However, a keyword needs to be able to produce qualified traffic. Qualified traffic is best built with specificity. One and two word keyword phrases are generally best left for actual domain names or home pages. For internal web pages it is best to focus on three or four word keyword phrases. However, in this particular case, “lasagna” produces a level of specificity in many t0o word phrases: “seafood lasagna”, “vegetable lasagna”, “mexican lasagna”, “chicken lasagna”. Don’t rule out common sense when searching for specificity. In this case, these two word phrases fit the bill. In this case, a web page can be developed around each of these phrases. So instead of just one page about lasagna, there can be four pages about very specific kinds of lasagna.

But what about potential traffic? Each of those four keywords, according to a variety of keyword tools, could produce up to 50-200 visitors a day . Multiply by four (for each of the new lasagna pages) that is 200-800 a day or 8000 to 24000 a month.

A word about traffic. These numbers do not represent the number of visitors that will ACTUALLY end up on those web pages. It is simply a picture of POTENTIAL. There are no guarantees. A page not only has to be keyword optimized but other factors need to be in place before a page can rank well for a keyword phrase. What the numbers do indicate is HEALTH. For some out there, a potential monthly audience of 8000 to 24000 may be small. Remember, this is for four web pages. Four pages that could draw a decent amount of traffic into a much larger site. Remember as well, that these numbers are relative to the industry. No, they will not pull in the amount of traffic that “Pamela Anderson” does, but relative to the lasagna/food/cooking industry they are decent indeed.

It is best to use a variety of keyword tools to determine potential traffic. Each tool will produce a different number. Creating a RANGE of potential traffic helps set more realistic expectations. If a site ranks well for these keyword terms then expect anywhere from 25% to 75% of those potential traffic numbers to actually visit. How a web page is listed in the SERPS will affect whether it is clicked or not and that is an article for another day.

Keyword Difficulty

Questions have been found that can be answered. Healthy keywords have been identified. How difficult will it be to rank well for these keywords? Is it possible to rank well to grab a portion of that traffic? The simplest test is to perform a search. Type “vegetable lasagna” in Google and look at the results. Look for the following:

• How many of the top ten results are home pages? How many are internal web pages? The more actual home pages in the top ten, then most likely the more difficult it will be to rank well for that term. In the case of “vegetable lasagna”, there are no home pages returned. That is good news!
• Look at the web page titles. Does “vegetable lasagna” appear in the title of the web page? Do they appear together or seperately? Pages where the terms appear together will be more competitive than those where they are separated.
• Look at the web site description. Does “vegetable lasagna” even appear in the description? If yes, then more competitive.
• Look at the URL. Does “vegetable lasagna” appear in the URL? If yes, then it is more competitive.

While there does seem to be decent competition for “vegetable lasagna”, it is not formidable. Remember, a well optimized web page focused on a specific keyword can do amazingly well even with little offpage optimization efforts.

Read the keyword popularity research article to learn more about a sound keyword analysis approach.