Posts Tagged ‘Choosing Effective Keywords’

Keyword Research Choosing Effective Keywords – Get Traffic To Your Website

When it comes to keyword research, many of us when we first set out to build a website do not understand the importance of doing right from the start. 

Setting up a website without doing keyword research or planning the structure around these keywords is like building a house without foundations or a set of plans.

Most of us know that it is important to write a business plan if we are going to setup a business and to have goals to aim for. Not everyone does it and I think that most who do not tend to fail. Not having a business plan is like setting sail on the ocean with no charts or navigational equipment, you will soon be lost at sea and lucky ever to see land again.

There is a saying “fail to plan and you plan to fail”

I believe that keyword research is as important as your business plan.

So how do you go about doing effective keyword research that will drive traffic to your blog or website?

Well, it is not as difficult as all that. It just takes time and a bit of a thought process.

If you are using wordpress to build a site, which I highly recommend, then building the structure is relatively easy, even for a beginner. The beauty of word press is that it already has the structure in place all you have to do is add the page names and all is done for you.

There are two type of keyword research that you need to do. The first is the theme keywords. These are the keywords that you would use for your website pages. The second ones are your money keywords.

Theme words are what people will use when they are looking for information on your topic or subject. I have seen many articles advising people not to bother with these but just to go for the buying or money keywords but I do not agree. Ranking for the information seeking keywords is as important in the long term future of a website. Becoming an authority on a subject will have a sustainable effect on your long term rankings.

Once you have the reputaion as an authority website then it becomes much easier to rank for the more valuable money keywords.

Lets say you were setting up a website about The Isle of Man. A small Island off of the West coast of England.

You could well have the following as your themed keywords.

• The Isle of Man
• Main Towns
• IOM Villages
• History of the Isle of Man
• The manx (search it for yourself ;-)  )
• Isle of Man books
• Travel guide to the Isle of Man
• Things to Do on The Isle of Man
• Fishing on the Isle of Man
• Sea Fishing on IOM
• Fresh water fishing on the IOM
• Scuba Diving on the Isle of Man
• Places to dive on the Isle of Man
• Dive centres on the IOM
• Cycling Holidays on the Isle of Man
• Hiring a bike on the Isle of Man (link to relevant page on the Getting about section)
• The Isle of Man TT Race (a very famous annual motorbike race they have on the island)
• Getting to the Isle of Man
• Plane
• Ferry
• Fast boat
• Swimming (only joking)
• Shopping on the Isle of Man
• Walking Holidays on the Isle of Man
• Night Life in the Isle of Man
• Clubs
• Restaurants
• Bars
• Pubs
• Places to Stay on the Isle of Man
• Isle of Man Hotels
• Guest Houses on the Isle of Man
• Campsites on the IOM
• Getting about on the Isle of Man
• Public Transport
• Taxis
• Private hire
• Cycling
• Hiring a Car
• Working on the IOM
• Type of jobs
• How to find a job on IOM
• Living on the Isle of Man
• Buying a house
• Legal requirements
• Cost of buying a house
• Estate agents details
• Renting a house

The above list covers a lot of the main themes that people will be looking for when they search for information on the Isle of Man. There are probably more that you can think of to add but this should give you  the basic idea of what you need to do for your website. The bolded keywords are headings and the others are sub headings.

Once you create these pages then you need to add content. Some of the headings will only require a small amount of content.

The second type of keywords are the buying ones and these are far more important but without the first ones you will have difficulty getting found for these money keywords.

Some of them are also in the main page headings as you will see.

Keyword Research For Content

when you begin to add content then you will use keywords like.

• flights to the isle of man
• plane tickets for the isle of man
• booking a ferry to the isle of man
• scuba diving clubs on the isle of man
• cycling holidays
• bike rentals
• car hire companies
• booking a hotel
• where to stay in the IOM

These keywords are what people will use when they are closer to making a buying decision.  Not only will you get traffic from google for these keywords but visitors to your site that see links to other parts of your website will also click through and go from information seekers to buyers.

This is quite a lengthy post and I hope it gets the main point across that you really MUST take the time to research your keywords before building your website.

As always if you have any questions or do not understand then just let me know on the contact us form and I will do my best to help.

Keyword research – An important part of SEO.