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You are here: Home / How To / Select the Right Keywords: Keyword Research, Competitive Analysis and Relevance

Select the Right Keywords: Keyword Research, Competitive Analysis and Relevance

by Matt Fields

Learn how to select keywords that will deliver results, valuable traffic and top search rankings.

Keywords Selection

Focusing on keywords that are not incredibly competitive but provide a regular supply of search engine traffic is key to successful content marketing.

Make sure to take the time to research keywords.  If you do a good job selecting keywords for your content marketing, you will see an increase in website traffic from search engines in only a few weeks.

Search Engine Basics

Search engines use keywords within the content of a webpage to determine the page’s search engine ranking against other websites, and pages with similar content, in an attempt to present the best resources of information on the web for a given search.

Keyword Research

When doing keyword research, three of the most important factors to consider are keyword traffic, competition, and relevance.

You will want to find keywords that have a decent amount of regular traffic. This is pretty easy to determine using one of the free keyword research tools listed below. Enter in your keywords and see what ones have the highest monthly traffic.

Free Keyword Research Tools
  • Google Keyword Tools
  • SEO Book Keyword Tool
  • Market Samurai

Keyword Competitive Analysis

Once you have found keywords that receive a decent amount of daily search traffic, look at how competitive it would be rank in the top three spot on popular search engines such as Google and Bing.

Most keyword research tools will provide some type of competition score. This should give you a basic idea of how much work it will take to be listed as the top result. After you have done an initial analysis using the keyword research tool, take a few minutes to try them out in popular search engines.

When viewing the results for a keyword search, you should get an idea of the caliber of websites you will be competing with for specific keyword phrases. By installing a free SEO competitive analysis tool for your web browser, you can analyze competitors’ websites and position yourself to make more informed keyword decisions.

Free SEO Competitive Analysis Tools
  • SEOmoz Toolbar
  • SEO for Chrome
  • SEO Quake for Firefox

Keyword Relevance

After finding keywords with a decent amount of traffic, and not too much competition, make sure they are relevant to your website’s content.

If you choose keywords that are not relevant to your content, most of the traffic that you get from keyword research and SEO will not pay off. Search engine visitors will come to your site, only to leave when they realize that the content does not match the search intent of the keywords.

Always use common sense when determining if a keyword is relevant to your webpage. If the webpage answers the question raised by the search query, then it is probably relevant.

Relevance and search intent can be a little confusing at first. Here are a few articles and resources from experts in the field of keyword research and SEO.

Keyword Relevance and Search Intent
  • The Search Taxonomy: Getting Inside the Mind of the Searcher
  • 3 Content Strategies To Target Decision Makers By Search Intent
  • Segmenting Search Intent by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz
  • How Intention May Influence Search Result Click Through

For more keyword and SEO advice, check out the Choosing Keywords for SEO series.

Filed Under: How To

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