Why is doing a keyword analysis so important?

Not long ago I did several analyses in a row. I realized that there weren’t many key phrases that a new website could compete for. And I started thinking, maybe keyword analysis is no longer necessary! I almost started celebrating. Ah, but too soon…

Then I heard about Latent Semantic Indexing and was sure that keyword analysis was a thing of the past. Not even close.

Two main things are happening that make it more important to do your keyword analysis now, before you take another step, invest another ad dollar, write a blog post or write another word of content.

1. Searchers are becoming more sophisticated and using longer search strings to obtain more relevant results - now the key phrases with a higher KEI can be found once again.

2. The onset of social media creates new opportunity.  Now, when you do a keyword analysis and find some long key phrase strings with a really high KEI, it suddenly becomes a blog post or article title.

So HOW do you do a keyword analysis and then, how do you apply that information to your website?

There are many tools out there, some free and some are pretty pricey. I won’t lie, you get what you pay for. We’ve used WordTracker with wonderful results. More recently I’ve spent a lot of time with KeywordDiscovery. It took some time after being so used to WordTracker but I really like it. I’m about to take Wordze for a spin . . . Check out some reviews and do a test drive. The methodology I use is:

• Brainstorm an initial list of keywords you THINK people will use to find you
• Break out your site structure and add to your list thinking of phrases that may be used on each page. Remember, each page is a “home” page, landing page, entryway to your site.
• Start entering them into your tool and see what phrases it spits out that you hadn’t even thought of!
• Build a list of relevant terms, the bigger the better. Don’t judge them too closely, just add them in whether or not you already have related content. Use the litmus test “Is it relevant to the overall concept of my site, my product or service?” If so, include it in your list. A good list can have thousands of words.
• Export to a spreadsheet, make sure you include KEI information.
• Sort your data by traffic and you’ll see the keyphrases that could potentially drive the most traffic. If your domain is brand new, though, make sure you check the KEI and if it’s under 2 it’ll take a LONG while to rank well for those terms.
• Now sort your data by KEI. You’ll see some pretty specific long key phrases float to the top. Those are your hot blog or article topics that can send traffic your site quickly. They can also make great page headers.
• Start filtering the data for page topics and adjust your meta information accordingly. Home page key phrase should be fairly general, and contrary to popular design opinions, there should be sufficient relevant content on the home page. Especially if your domain is new…