SEO Tip: Keyword Basics

Basic Approach to Keyword Research

This is the basic process for keyword research that I use when first trying to come up with good keyword terms to begin driving a small business website to better free organic listings.

Let’s say we have a candle stick maker in Chicago who makes custom handmade candles. Let’s say he already has a properly formatted website with the URL handmadecandleschicago.com, and proper permalink structure.

He has some content, a few photos, and a blog. He is ready to start tweaking and building.

It’s a good thing our candlestick maker chose to use WordPress rather than one of those old school “from scratch” websites, because with the WordPress All in One SEO Plugin, it will not be hard to have fantastic control of all his SEO settings.

(Yes I love WordPress!)
(Note: While there are fantastic websites, many of the sites I see are still being constructed with outdated software and techniques.

It sounds good to have a site made from the ground up rather than from a template, but in reality, many of these sites are like driving down the Dan Ryan in a horse a buggy. WordPress has been around a long time, and offers the highest quality, the greatest selection of tools and features, and cruses through cyberstreets at the speed of light.)

Keyword Brain Storming

The first thing I do is look and see what people are searching for by placing the short-tail phrase in the free Wordtracker tool. In this case I would put in the words “chicago” and “candlestick.”

This will give me a list of search phrases people are actually using. Rather than just start brainstorming about what I think people would type in their search bar to look for candlestick makers in Chicago, it’s better to look and see what people are actually searching for.
After I have my list I then start putting the terms that I came up with through several other tools to get some accurate search volumes.

This process basically gets it down to what keywords people are actually using, and in what numbers. This all can take some time, and you often have to follow your gut instinct. I think SEO is half science and half art.

Two Keyword Phrase Groups

I try to come up with three to five top keyword phrases to target. I use this list as my main list and start charting my course down cyberstreet looking for a way to get my foot in the door.

I use my top keyword phrases in my heading, my title tags, and in the page text.

I also come up with a sub-list of terms that are a little different. For example, “Chicago candlestick” could be in my top phrase list because that’s what most people use, and the keyword phrase “chicago candle stick” could be in a sub-list.

If I see that 49,000 people used the keyword phrase “Chicago candlestick” last month, I want to use that. But 14,000 people may have also used the keyword phrase “chicago candle stick” as well. Sometimes I get my foot in the door using these lesser used terms. This helps to get some force behind me to start climbing into the top listings.

I may start to notice that people are finding the site naturally, or more often with other keywords, I make adjustments as necessary to achieve the greatest potential organic listings, and start building from there. It can take some time to get things right.

Using A Variety of Keyword Phrases

Keyword density is no longer as important as unique original content. Don’t waste your time doing calculations on density, write good content and use your target keywords in the title tag, heading, once in the first sentence, and one or two times in the text. Using a variety of related keywords also has relevancy.

I use my top keyword group in heading tags, title tags and page text. Then I sprinkle the sub group keywords in the individual post tags and keyword lists. I think this gives the cyber critters lots of variety to sink their teeth into. This, combined with rich lush text, provides a powerful way to start good small business website SEO.

But That’s Not All…

Like everything with SEO, it’s not just about good keywords, or a clean theme, or submission to 45 search engines and 55 web directories; SEO is not about doing just one thing. Good SEO is a matter of many small basic steps that all add up. The most important factor in SEO, is quality useful content. This will win the day over all the techno jumbo.

If you use a website setup service using solid basics, it will go a long way.

For practical tips in the sphere of internet marketing – please make sure to read the page. The times have come when concise info is really at your fingertips, use this possibility.

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