Keyword Research - how to deliver visits, response and profits to your website Posted by Mark Nunney on 01 July 2010

Let me introduce you to a practical keyword research process you can use to make your search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising profitable.

This keyword research process is based on 10 years of front line experience as a professional SEO delivering visits, response and profits in a wide range of markets including luxury hotels, debt help, sports, gifts, banking and gardening.

It is driven by efficiency, a quest for the bottom line of profit and maximizing the return you’ll get on your efforts. I’m not interested in anything that gets in the way of that quest.

It’s easy to spend lots of time in keyword research pursuing numerous interesting metrics. Complicated spreadsheets full of columns of fascinating data can be built. But if they don’t take you closer to proven response and profit then they are a waste of your time and they are not part of keyword research for profit.

I’ll divide this article into three parts:

1) Principles of keyword research
2) Keyword research for new sites
3) Keyword research for established sites

Principles first …

1) Principles of keyword research

Before we get into the specifics of our practical keyword research process there are a number of concepts, ideas and principles that should be understood.

Traditional keyword research uses samples of real searches (keywords) to make estimates of the Popularity of those keywords. It might then look at the websites competing for each keyword; and make estimates about how hard it is for any site to beat that Competition and get results.

Popularity and Competition metrics can then be combined to choose keywords with a good risk (competition) v reward (popularity) ratio.

That’s a good start and I use this traditional approach in Part Two below. But it should only be the start of your keyword research process. Soon your site will have traffic and real data that shows you which keywords your sites can beat the competition for and get response from. We’ll show you how to do that in Part Three.

This process is more interested in maximizing your profit than just finding some keywords to target. So we will look at how keyword research can be used for SEO for profit in the real world.

Such a journey leads inevitably to the long tail of keywords. This is the almost infinite variety of keywords used on search engines. So varied that 20% of the keywords used each day are either completely new or have not been used for at least six months.

This means that for any single (or exact) keyword you target (let’s call this the ‘head’), there are likely thousands of variations that you also want to get results for (this is the long tail). Indeed, the long tail is so big that the head is insignificant.

So if you’re selling herbal tea you don’t just target the keyword herbal tea. You target all keywords containing herbal tea and there will be many thousands of them. That group of keywords is called the herbal tea, keyword niche.

We’ll see how targeting keyword niches is key to making a profit from search engines. And we’ll give you a simple process for doing so.

2) Keyword research for new sites

Keyword research for a new site can seem difficult and is often made complicated for no good reason.

You can simplify it by starting with these two goals:

1) Only create site content you would want, whether or not it brings traffic or response. So no work you do is wasted.

2) Achieve your first organic search engine traffic. So you can then target keywords proven to bring response.

For new sites we use the Keyword Research Funnel which has the following five steps:

1) Find target markets

Identify the markets you want to target. This might be the markets you must target because the products and services you sell can’t be changed.

You will be finding the keywords that represent the markets you will sell to. Eg, you might sell tea (keyword: tea) and your markets might be tea and its ‘children’ herbal tea and green tea.

These are not yet the specific keywords you will optimize for. You will find those later when you explore inside each chosen target market.

2) Prioritize target keyword niches

Here you explore inside each chosen target market to find target keywords. Eg, a target market might be herbal tea and your target keyword niche is herbal tea benefits.

As discussed earlier you aren’t really targeting the exact (single) keyword herbal tea benefits; you are targeting all keywords containing herbal tea benefits, including:

herbal tea health benefits

the benefits of herbal tea

All these keywords are called the herbal tea benefits keyword niche.

3) Create first content

Now you build your site with a structure to match your target markets, target keyword niches and their matching pages.

Of course, you may already have a site. In which case you must carve out your wanted structure with existing and new pages and menus.

Either way you will have a page for each of your target keyword niches.

4) PPC to verify target keywords

Now you use Pay per Click (PPC) advertising (like Google AdWords) to find out if your site can sell anything to people searching with your target keywords. If you’re just into branding (many are) then you find out if those searchers like your site.

If your site doesn’t sell to your targets then you either change your marketing, your products or your target keyword niches. For example, you might have chosen to target herbal tea benefits but PPC tests show you that those searching with that keyword don’t buy anything from your site.

The result is a list of target keyword niches that you know your site can make sales from. To be clear, we really mean that you can makes sales from those searching with keywords in the niche.

Now all you have to do is get those visitors to your site by performing well in search engines for those keywords ...

5) SEO for verified keywords

This is going well. You’ve proved your targets bring response. But can you beat the competition on Google and get organic (unpaid for) visits for these keyword niches?

There’s only one way to find out …

Optimize your target keyword niches’ pages for search engines and keep doing so until you get some visits.

I know we are moving fast here through some big subjects. This article will give you a big picture of how to use keyword research for profitable online marketing.

When your site has consistent organic traffic you can move to the Keyword Research Circle of Response which we explore in Part Three …

3) Keyword research for established sites

When your site has consistent organic (non-paid) search engine traffic you can enter the Keyword Research Circle of Response.

The Circle of Response is a virtuous circular process based on the principle of exploiting the keyword niches proven to be the most profitable on your site. It has the following four major stages:

A) Find new priority target keyword niches

Following the Keyword Research Funnel, you chose target markets and then target keyword niches within those markets. PPC advertising was used to find which of those keyword niches could bring response to your site. You then optimized for your responsive niches with on-page SEO and link building.

Organic search engine traffic followed.

You now analyze that traffic to find new prioritized target keyword niches. Your site has now proven it can get response from people searching with keywords in these new target niches and beat enough of the competing websites to get traffic.

You’ve found success, no matter how small – now build on it.

B) Find new keyword niches within target niches

Each of your new prioritized target keyword niches contains thousands of keywords. Each of those keywords is the seed of another keyword niche (a child niche or sub niche). You now dig into your target keyword niches to find the best of those child niches.

Your subsequent SEO and PPC work will depend on keyword niche size and your level of resources. You might optimize one or two existing pages or create hundreds of new pages.

C) Invest in new target keyword niches

It’s time for action with some SEO and PPC.

For SEO, each of your target keyword niches is mapped to an existing or new page. Page content is optimized. Internal links are optimized. Off-site link building campaigns begin.

Used with more detailed PPC advice, the processes given here can kick start a PPC campaign by directing it at keyword niches proven to bring response to your site.

D) For max ROI use marginal response and profit

To achieve maximum return on investment, you must know the relationship between your response metrics and your profit.

For example, you might measure response as new subscribers to a free newsletter. But what % of those free subs end up buying something? How much do they spend and how much of that is profit?

Also, you must continually monitor response trends after your SEO work has started.

Response rates for your target keyword niches may drop, changing their order of priority. Plus, new highly responsive keyword niches will always emerge.

This continual monitoring of response trends and the emergence of new keyword niches to target takes you back round the Circle of Response.

All the time, you must balance long-term investments in larger keyword niches with the immediate potential offered by smaller keyword niches that might bring response today.

And here’s a diagram-flow-chart type-thing to illustrate the process. Print it out and put on your wall ...

Google is the world’s leading search engine and makes much valuable information available to help search marketers. Wordtracker’s tools allow you to analyze and organize Google’s (and others’) data in ways not manually possible.

The result is a process that begins as a craft using some basic principles of business and ends as a science that will lead you to maximum response and profit from search engine traffic.