Keyword research – part 1: first steps

Com­mer­cial web projects aim to generate their turnover through website visitor trans­ac­tions. This means that website owners aim to gain as many visitors as possible, and, if possible, transform these visitors into customers. As search engines are the first point of contact for a potential website customer, they play a central role in this process. So if you want your website to be suc­cess­ful and get a lot of hits, you need to find out how users search for content online and what their in­ten­tions are. You can discover this in­form­a­tion through keyword research. But just knowing popular search terms isn’t going to increase your profits; the real challenge is de­term­in­ing which keywords produce leads and con­ver­sions. Identi­fy­ing these keywords allows you to best target potential customers and con­tinu­ously improve your on-page op­tim­isa­tion process.

Strategic keyword research is the basis of any effective on-page op­tim­isa­tion procedure. In order to get a no­tice­able spot on search engine results pages, website owners should obtain detailed in­form­a­tion about the search terms most relevant to their service. Before beginning any keyword research, you should always ask yourself the following questions:

• What does my target group search for online?
• Which search terms are as­so­ci­ated with the products, services, and in­form­a­tion offered on my website?
• And how would customers describe technical or industry-specific terms?

These questions can be answered by col­lect­ing and analysing a list of relevant key terms. The research behind these search terms is a necessary first step to building a com­pre­hens­ive keyword strategy. The goal of these measures is to determine relevant keywords with the highest search volumes, so that you can use those terms is your webpages for search engine op­tim­isa­tion purposes. While tra­di­tion­al keyword research focuses on pro­mo­tion­al search terms, such as the specific products and services offered on the website, holistic keyword research allows you to define all the search terms as­so­ci­ated with your project. This allows content strategies to reach users who are seeking in­form­a­tion, rather than just customers with pur­chas­ing intention. By pub­lish­ing content on a par­tic­u­lar topic, website owners aim to build a repu­ta­tion as an expert in this area and strengthen their potential customers’ trust.

When internet users don’t know exactly which website will offer exactly what they’re looking for, they turn to search engines to reach their goal. They enter a brief, vague de­scrip­tion of their desired content. From the search terms (or keywords) entered, the search engine will come up with a com­pre­hens­ive list of search results. Keywords can consist of a single word or a search phrase with several words. When website operators truly un­der­stand the terms and wording used in internet searches, they can use this in­form­a­tion to optimise their websites with the cor­res­pond­ing keywords. This un­der­stand­ing allows them to be more likely to enter the top ranks of the search engine results pages (SERPs). But before website owners start their SEO keyword research, it’s necessary to clarify how keywords in search engine marketing (SEM) are clas­si­fied, what search intent can be derived from certain search terms, and how keywords are processed by the search engine.

Defend vs. conquer

In principle, keywords can be dis­tin­guished according to whether they are connected to a par­tic­u­lar supplier, or whether they are generic (not connected to a par­tic­u­lar brand). In search engine op­tim­isa­tion, this refers to defend and conquer keywords.

• Defend keywords are typical search terms that internet users use to land on a par­tic­u­lar supplier. Generally, the searcher is already aware of the supplier’s products or services. This means that they use the supplier’s brand name, product name, ad­vert­ising slogans, or a com­bin­a­tion of these elements in their search query. As a rule, it should be the goal of every provider to occupy the search engine’s top spot for the defend keyword of your own company. This is usually the case when it comes to corporate brands; with regard to in­di­vidu­al product brands, suppliers often have to compete with sales partners and online retailers that offer the same product in their web stores.
• Conquer keywords are generic search terms that the search engine user enters when he or she is not looking for any one par­tic­u­lar provider. In online marketing, conquer keywords are of central sig­ni­fic­ance in gen­er­at­ing new customers, provided that the goal is to improve their rankings. A high ranking in the search engine results conveys to potential customers both a certain authority and a strong relevance to the products or services they are seeking. Un­for­tu­nately, those who do want to rank highly with conquer keywords have to be prepared to face constant com­pet­i­tion for the top-ranking positions.

From short head to long-tail

With a few ex­cep­tions, the more specific the search query, the less often it’s searched. For example, the term office chair is searched for about 246,000 times on average per month, whereas office chair black leather only receives about 70 searches per month. As this example shows, more specific search queries tend to consist of longer phrases with more words, so they determine more precisely what the user wants to find. In search engine marketing, these kinds of queries are referred to as long-tail keywords, as the central keyword is followed by a string of less crucial keywords, like a tail. The opposite of search terms like these are called short head keywords, which are shorter and a lot more general. Terms that fall in the grey area between the two are known as mid-tail keywords.

• Short head keywords: short head keywords that spe­cific­ally refer to products or service are es­pe­cially popular among ad­vert­isers, due to their typically high search volumes. But the top places in the organic results list, which search engines give to just these keywords, are also in­cred­ibly com­pet­it­ive. Often, the fin­an­cially strongest market leaders in the industry already occupy these coveted spots. And for the others, even if op­tim­ising with these keywords proves suc­cess­ful, a lot of money must be invested.
• Long-tail keywords: long-tail keywords are another matter com­pletely. Due to their lower search volumes, these keywords are far less com­pet­it­ive. But that’s not the only benefit of op­tim­ising long search queries. Users who search for long-tail keywords generally have a very precise idea of what they expect to find. As a result, achieving a high ranking with these par­tic­u­lar keywords increases website operators’ chances of at­tract­ing visitors to their website.

As well as the frequency with which certain keywords are used, the in­ten­tions behind these keywords also play a big role. In search engine marketing, we identify three main search in­ten­tions:

Nav­ig­a­tion­al search queries

When entering nav­ig­a­tion­al search queries, users tend to have a very concrete idea of which website they want to visit. It could be that they’ve just forgotten the exact web address, or it’s more con­veni­ent to search than to type the address into the browser’s search bar. Users generally search for the names of brands, companies, in­sti­tu­tions, or or­gan­isa­tions in the hope that the search engine will take them to the homepage of their desired website. Popular nav­ig­a­tion­al search query examples include YouTube, Facebook, and Gmail. If users need to find a par­tic­u­lar subpage, they’ll often add an extra search term such as terms and con­di­tions, contact, dir­ec­tions, opening times, or jobs.

When entering search queries such as British library or doctors’ ap­point­ments, users neither have an intention to buy a product, nor wish to un­der­stand the keywords them­selves; instead, these terms simply act as anchors to navigate the internet. Nav­ig­a­tion­al keywords therefore only normally generate traffic and con­ver­sions if the website operator decides to implement SEO measures using keywords referring to his or her own brand. For example, if you offer an e-mail service, you shouldn’t invest too much in the keyword Gmail when carrying out SEO measures. When a user enters a nav­ig­a­tion­al keyword like Gmail, they just want to use the Gmail service, rather than another mail service that appears in the results pages. In general, this means that you shouldn’t rely on nav­ig­a­tion­al keywords to win customers.

In­form­a­tion­al keywords

Internet users use in­form­a­tion­al keywords to find answers to specific questions. When users enter search queries like husband of Michelle Obama, Shakespeare biography, and are bees too fat to fly, they are searching for in­form­a­tion. Typical in­dic­at­ors of in­form­a­tion­al search queries include elements like what is, defin­i­tion, how to, how does … work, and tutorial.

When entering keywords like this, the user expects to find the answer to his or her query on the websites that appear in the results pages. This means that com­mer­cially ori­ent­ated websites ex­per­i­ence a high bounce rate when users mis­takenly land on them. But that’s not to say that web shop operators should ditch in­form­a­tion­al keywords when op­tim­iz­ing their sites, as this category also includes search queries about products and services. Sometimes, product guides, de­scrip­tions, and reviews are suf­fi­cient for sat­is­fy­ing the user’s request. Creating content relevant to in­form­a­tion­al search queries really gives web store owners the op­por­tun­ity to put their product expertise to the test. This ul­ti­mately pays off, as customers tend to go back to stores that keep them well informed.

Trans­ac­tion­al keywords

Above all else, web shop operators should pay attention to keywords that indicate an intention to buy. When users enter a query coupled with a search term like buy, order, rent, or download, it means they’re on the lookout for a website that allows a specific trans­ac­tion to take place. Generally speaking, the user already knows what kind of product they want to buy or which service they would like to use. The use of a search engine simply allows the user to find the best offer from the most suitable provider. Trans­ac­tion­al search queries often include elements like cheap, af­ford­able, discount, and free shipping.

Internet users generally trust the search engine’s rating system, which is sorted according to relevance. This means that customers often settle for the web store with the number one spot on the results pages. Therefore, focusing on relevant trans­ac­tion­al keywords during the website op­tim­isa­tion process can prove be­ne­fi­cial in gen­er­at­ing a good number of con­ver­sions further down the line. The only downside is that the huge potential of trans­ac­tion­al search terms is no secret, which means that there is stiff com­pet­i­tion for the keywords with the highest search volumes.

When using a search engine, internet users tend to type in keywords as they pop into their heads. As a result, search queries don’t usually consist of standard marketing terms, a con­sist­ent writing style, correct grammar or word order. When con­duct­ing keyword research, it’s important to keep in mind that there are several ways of phrasing one search term. For example, synonyms are re­cog­nised as such by search engines, but count as separate keywords. Various word com­bin­a­tions offer users a great deal of scope when forming their queries. During keyword research, website operators often encounter mixtures of keywords that can be written in different order, yielding a different result each time. For example, the market leader, Google, can dif­fer­en­ti­ate between lunchbox (18,100 searches/month) and lunch box (74,000 searches/month). It’s important to remember here that dashes count as blank spaces, so it doesn’t make a dif­fer­ence if the user searches for lunch box or lunch-box. However, it’s not always necessary to include different word com­bin­a­tions, par­tic­u­larly if they don’t yield very high results. Website operators must therefore decide whether to include these com­bin­a­tions on a case-by-case basis. In most cases, though, when con­duct­ing keyword research, you should only include correctly spelled phrases. Search engines don’t take into account whether keywords are written in lower case or capital letters. Keyword vari­ations, which might alter depending on the precise grammar used in the search term (tense, number, or person used), are also becoming less important. While there are some ex­cep­tions (for example, the keyword shoe throws up different results to shoes), in general the gram­mat­ic­al variants of a keyword are covered by a website’s normal content. As a result, it is in­ef­fect­ive to define separate landing pages for every single gram­mat­ic­al variation of a keyword. Thanks to modern search engines’ auto-correct functions, mis­spelled keywords are also a no-go in con­tem­por­ary SEO. For example, Google can recognise search terms that are written in­cor­rectly and will auto­mat­ic­ally deliver results for the correct keywords. Another argument against the inclusion of mis­spelled keywords is the fact that those incorrect keywords must then appear in your website’s content-. This practice is rated neg­at­ively by search engine crawlers and looks un­pro­fes­sion­al, leaving readers with a bad im­pres­sion of your site. However, if mis­spelled keywords with high search volumes are still taken into account (with regard to search engine marketing), it’s better to use those keywords within search engine ad­vert­ising (SEA) measures.

The key to con­duct­ing keyword research for Google and other big search engines is to develop a list as com­pre­hens­ive as possible of all the keywords that related to your online project. These should include those used by internet users to find relevant products, services, and in­form­a­tion. This task cannot be attempted without the ap­pro­pri­ate programs. Website operators and SEO experts rely on a variety of keyword research tools, which can be used to collect the ap­pro­pri­ate keywords. But even the best research programs need user input in order to be able to carry out its tasks, which is why every keyword research procedure starts with identi­fy­ing as­so­ci­ated words.

Brain­storm­ing

Unless you’re starting up a com­pletely new online project, the starting point of any keyword research process involves figuring out the status quo of the website that is to be optimised. The first step towards creating a com­pre­hens­ive list of all relevant keywords involves an analysis of the existing data, and using this analysis to brain­storm fresh ideas. This leads to the following questions:

• Which sector does this project belong to?
• What kind of products, services, or in­form­a­tion is on offer?
• Which target group is this geared towards?
• What benefits can the visitor or customer gain from this offer?
• How is the website con­struc­ted?
• Do the nav­ig­a­tion structure or product cat­egor­ies show any in­dic­a­tion of keywords?
• Does the site include keywords that can achieve good rankings?

Asking these initial brain­storm­ing questions is the first part of the SEO keyword research process, which can then be split into two further phases: gen­er­at­ing ideas and struc­tur­ing.

• Gen­er­at­ing ideas: free as­so­ci­ation is the focus of the first phase in the brain­storm­ing process. If you’re not out­sourcing your keyword research to an external service, you should gather sug­ges­tions from all your business’ de­part­ments in order to have as many diverse and prof­it­able ideas as possible. In this exercise, team members list as many keywords as possible related to the online project, the brand, the company’s image, and the products or services.
• Struc­tur­ing: the second phase of the brain­storm­ing process involves taking a view of the col­lec­tion of keywords, and sorting them according to the website structure. The result of keyword brain­storm­ing is a struc­tured list of keywords, grouped them­at­ic­ally and assigned to different subpages of the web project. This can also sometimes result in ideas for com­pletely new areas that are not yet part of the website structure.

De­vel­op­ing a focused keyword strategy requires more than just col­lect­ing the relevant search terms. While keyword lists are great place to start, they tend to be the product of a single brain­storm­ing session, meaning that there are often many gaps, which only emerge later on in the research process. This is where research tools come into play; these complete keyword lists sys­tem­at­ic­ally, revealing the SEO potential of each search term. Three popular free keyword research tools are Google’s keyword planner, Über­sug­gest, and Merge­words. You can find a more detailed de­scrip­tion of these tools as well as other keyword research and analysis programs in the second part of our series. Synonym databases provide a further resource for SEO keyword research. These can aid website operators in finding keywords that are related by region, style, or culture. Only once you’ve conducted careful pre­lim­in­ary research on which keywords your target group use in order to find your products, services, or in­form­a­tion can you complete your list of keywords and analyze their potential for on-page op­tim­isa­tion. The following websites can be used to find synonyms:

• Thesaurus.com
• Oxford Dic­tion­ar­ies
• Merriam-Webster
• Synonym
• Synonym Finder

Analysing the com­pet­i­tion

Analysing the com­pet­i­tion is yet another good in­tro­duc­tion into the world of keyword research, es­pe­cially if you’re de­vel­op­ing a new sector, line of business, or market. In order to keep up with other busi­nesses, it’s important to find out how much your com­pet­it­ors invest in SEO, which keywords they invest in, and how suc­cess­ful they are. To find potential com­pet­it­ors, you can simply enter your own central keywords into a search engine and see which companies occupy the top spots in the SERPs. Here an analysis of spe­cial­ised com­pet­it­ors often proves par­tic­u­larly prof­it­able. However, there are only a few ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances when it makes sense to analyse large online retailers and mar­ket­places like Amazon or eBay (for example, if your business is similarly large and diverse). This is because these companies are active in virtually all markets, meaning that they are able to use a massive selection of op­tim­isa­tion measures to suit a wide range of genres and keywords. The process of analyzing the com­pet­i­tion can also be automated. For website operators who are already per­form­ing well in the SERPs, the SISTRIX Toolbox can generate a set of keywords, which can be compared to that of any com­pet­it­or websites in order to gain new relevant keywords.

With extensive keyword research, website operators can create a detailed analysis of their chosen keywords. The aim of this is to pri­or­it­ise the keywords according to specific eval­u­ation criteria: assigning keyword sets to single subpages of the website (keyword mapping), and po­ten­tially setting up new areas of the site. To find out how to do this, check out the third part of our series on SEO keyword research which covers the topic keyword strategy.