Step Wise SEO

How can you whittle down your list into a manageable group of 10 or so top target keywords? Here are the steps to a nicely honed list:

• The Keyword Balancing Act
• Combining Keywords
• Matching Keywords and Landing Pages
• Finalizing Your Short List

The Keyword Balancing Act
The most useful keywords will strike a balance between popularity, relevance, and competition.

We’re going to ask you to identify some of these more balanced keywords. Here are some examples of a good balance:

Lower Popularity/Higher Relevance A low popularity/high relevance combination means that even if there are not so many people searching for the term, the ones that do come are more likely to click on your listing, and ultimately convert on your site.

But don’t go too low! Unless you have a reason to doubt the data, searches with zero popularity scores should probably not even be considered, except for your company name or a trademarked product name.

Higher Competitiveness/Higher Relevance If you are drawn to a competitive term, be sure that it is balanced out with a very high degree of relevance.

Higher Popularity/Lower Competition/Higher Relevance This is the ideal balance. If you can find terms that are used heavily by searchers, are closely tied to your conversion goal, and are targeted by a reasonable number of competitors, you want them on your short list!

Consider the example below. The term “baby clothes” is popular, but it’s extremely competitive and does not balance that disadvantage with a high relevance level.

Not a good choice. On the other hand, “unique baby shower gifts,” while on the high side in competition, balances its disadvantage with a very high relevance.

Combine Keywords
Once you have your preferred terms flagged, look for terms that can be combined. For example, terms “baby clothes” and “unique baby clothes” can be combined into just one term: “unique baby clothes.”

This is a great way to get double duty out of your SEO efforts, combining the search popularity of both terms.

If you are including geographical information with your keywords, now is the time to combine it with your other terms.

For example, a manicure salon in Franklin, Missouri, may want to combine keywords to create the keyword phrases “manicure Franklin Missouri” and “salon Franklin Missouri.”

Match Keywords to Landing Pages
For a keyword to perform well in the search engines, it needs to be matched to a landing page on your site that would be an excellent destination for someone searching for this term.

A good landing page for a keyword will satisfy your visitors’ needs, answer their questions, and direct them toward conversion if appropriate.

Be sure the page contains information that is closely tied to the search term. And don’t make the rookie mistake of only thinking about your home page:

Pearl of Wisdom: Your home page will likely be the best landing page choice for your company name but not for many of your other keywords.

Let’s say you work for a toy store. For the search term “godzilla action figures,” a good landing page is the page that contains the description of the Godzilla action figures you’re selling and a link to purchase them.

For the more generic term “action figures,” a good landing page might contain a menu of all the action figures you’re selling with links to learn more about each one.

By the way, the landing pages you select today do not need to currently have your keyword of choice on it;

If you can’t think of an existing page that is a good match for one of your keywords, you have two choices: plan to build a new landing page, or drop the keyword out of your short list.

Finalize Your Short List
We’re going to ask you to trim your flagged list to your top 10 or so. You probably already have a good idea of which ones are your favorites, but in case you’re still on the fence, here are some ways to frame your thought process:

Am I being inclusive? While you were assigning landing pages, did you discover that you have flagged too many terms for one audience or that you left a conversion out in the cold?

Does my keyword have a good home? If you love a keyword but you can’t find an existing landing page for it, now is the time to examine your reasoning for flagging it in the first place.

Does it represent a legitimate opportunity or goal for your organization? Do you have the resources to build a page around this term?

Do a reality check now, because it doesn’t make sense to build Your SEO Plan around terms you can’t optimize for.

Am I overcrowding a landing page? For best optimization, each landing page can accommodate only a small number of search terms (one to three is a good rule of thumb).

If you’re noticing that you entered the same landing page over and over again for many of your terms, you should ask yourself whether this is a problem with your site

i.e., whether you have too many different topics on one page), whether you can drop some of the extra terms, or if you just need to use your noodle to identify some additional landing pages.

Will my colleagues agree? It’s important that others in your organization feel comfortable-or better yet, enthusiastic-about your top keywords.

Enlist the help of your colleagues if you can! Send out your list for review, or arrange a meeting with members of your team who hold an interest: writers, content creators, marketing managers, executives, and so on.