Step Wise SEO

Keywords and their selection is the most important element of a successful search engine marketing plan.

By selecting the right keywords a strategy can work; similarly, selecting the wrong keywords can see the best-laid plans fall by the wayside.

Combining terms results in singular keyword selection but, as the Internet has evolved, keywords have developed into keyphrases to accommodate the advanced search query strings used by searchers.

A concept that has developed over the past few years is that certain keywords fulfill a certain role, and have different performance criteria.

In understanding these objectives and the abilities and limitations of keywords a search strategy will be either strong or poor.

The best way to tackle search is to develop a ‘portfolio’ approach to keyword generation and find a mix of words and phrases that will meet and achieve any search strategy objective (see following figure).

Examples of keywords and keyphrases

Singular Keywords Phrase (1 – 2 Keywords) Phrase (3 + Keywords)
Camera Digital Camera Sony DSCF717 Digital Camera

Branded terms: these represent the brand, products or services of a company. They are likely to be the strongest converting terms and will almost certainly have the largest CTR of most terms within a portfolio.

The better known the brand the more likely the increased amount of traffic, however, regardless of the popularity of the company the relevance of terms to the searcher’s desired goal is the reason for their attractiveness.

The only area where these terms may not be as attractive is if an affiliate program is also engaged.

This topic is covered in Chapters 6, 7 and 8 and determines the best control parameters for any situation regarding said affiliates.

Generic terms: these are the most popular in relation to both searcher volume (i.e. how many times used as a search variable) and the amount of money marketers will invest to gain prominent listings.

The search volume is therefore high; however, the cost is also high so careful attention needs to be placed upon these terms to ensure an acceptable ROI can be found.

These terms also cover a great number of searcher `wants’, i.e. the relevancy of these terms to a particular topic list may be lower.

For this reason the CTR may not be as high as for a branded term and a subsequent conversion rate (if applied) may also be lower.

Specific terms: these are some of the most relevant to a searcher’s requirements and any listing matching these types of search has a higher chance of converting.

The issue with specific terms is that the search volume is low, as the specific nature of the searcher term isn’t as frequently used and, as such, a successful campaign should have a large number of specific terms within the portfolio.

Keywords: Keyword, Keyphrase, terms, search query, Branded terms, Generic terms, Specific terms,