No, the next sentence isn’t going to be ‘one great leap for mankind.’ Although keyword research is a complicated business, there is one very simple thing you can do to improve your experience with it. It’s no great leap. In fact, it’s something hundreds of thousands of people do every day.

Google it

Most of your site’s users will use the leading search engine Google when they perform searches, and your search engine optimisation techniques will focus on this search engine. Using Google the way your site’s users make use of it can actually give you a lot of insight into the major keywords for your industry, and help you make a decision about where you want to compete.

Start with keyword research

Your keyword research can tell you a lot about your industry. Unfortunately, it also usually comes at a most confusing time in the SEO period, right at the start when most companies are still trying to work things out. Your keyword research should tell you which keywords are already bringing people to your site, which keywords are popular for your industry, and which keywords to leave alone.

The keyword research stage isn’t too hard in itself. There are a few avenues you can take with your keyword research. It can be helpful to access the extra tools of a professional SEO company, and you can talk to us at SEO Consult about your keyword research. If you’ve done your research well, you will have a long list of potential keywords. It’s the thinning down that is really the hard part.

Narrowing down your list

Most companies won’t be able to optimise hundreds of pages. The number of pages your SEO plan focuses on will depend on the size of your site, your business goals, and the resources you can devote to optimisation. Regardless of the scope of your optimisation plan, you will inevitably need to thin down your keyword list.

You should start with a basic sorting of keywords you feel are going to be low, medium and high-competition. Your SEO consultant can assist you when you want to discover exactly how much traffic is being driven by those keywords in the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages.) This will give you a fairly good idea of how tough the competition is for each keyword, but won’t give you an absolute profile of your competitors.

Scope your competition with Google

Simply knowing that lots of companies compete for traffic from a keyword isn’t enough. You need to know what sort of competition is out there and whether you have a chance of beating it. For example, if the top twenty competitors for a keyword are all big business, your small business might be better off targeting something easier.

A basic Google search will give you a large part of the full picture. By using an exact match search on your potential keywords you get a very direct profile of who’s out there, and can even access their pages. This kind of straightforward research will give you the insight needed to make keyword decisions.

Get Involved