Tag Archives: keywords

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SEO Monday: 10 Additional Keyword Research Tools to Help you Define and Redefine your Keyword Phrases

Keyword Research Tools

Just scroll down to see the list of Keyword Research Tools.

Welcome back to SEO Monday! It has been a while since I last posted something for SEO Monday, but the Holiday Season kept me extremely busy.  I hope that you and your families had a wonderful Holiday Season.

Now that 2014 has started, it is time for Digital Marketing Managers to get back to work at driving traffic to websites and generating revenue by deploying SEO strategies.

One of the many digital marketing tactics that keeps Digital Marketing Managers busy in SEO is Keyword Analysis for organic SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) campaigns.

With Google’s multiple updates to their algorithms in 2013, keyword research will continue to be important for SEO and content marketing strategies.

There are many articles saying that Keywords are dead. However, I believe it is just a different way of thinking. Instead of coming up with a list of just words, Digital Marketing Managers need to develop a list of Key Phrases that current and potential customers will enter as queries into search engines.

So ask yourself,

What key phrases (not keywords) will your target audience enter into a search engine to find you?

After you develop a list of phrases that your target audience could potentially use to find you via search engines, you can use a research tool to help you determine the popularity and competition of your key phrases. Next, refine your key phrases until you have a list of phrases with high popularity and low competition.

Utilizing one of the Keyword Research Tools mentioned in an article called “10 Great Alternatives to the Google Keyword Research Tool” by Pam Dyer, you can determine the popularity and competition of you key phrases. I thought it was important for me to forward Dyer’s article on to you and list some free and paid Keyword Research Tools mentioned in her article.

Free Keyword Research Tools

  1. WordStream Keyword Tools
  2. Wordtracker –
  3. SEO Book Keyword Tool
  4. Ubersuggest
  5. Keyword Eye

Paid Keyword Research Tools

  1. Moz
  2. KeywordSpy
  3. SEMrush
  4. Keyword Discovery
  5. Advanced Web Ranking

Source: 10 Great Alternatives to the Google Keyword Research Tool

Given these Keyword Research Tools, find one that works for you in determining the Key Phrases that your target audience will type into search engines to find your organization.

As you develop your key phrase list, remember that people enter 3 to 4 words when completing a search. So, you might want to consider that your Key Phrases are 3 to 4 words long and use these phrases in your H tags and content.

Additional Resources

Learn More about Digital Marketing Manager, Cindy Plough

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SEO Mondays: Preparing your Keyword Analysis for your Website’s SEO

Welcome to the 1st SEO Monday: Preparing your Keyword Analysis for your Website’s SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the ability for your website to appear in the top position when your keywords or phrases are entered as search terms in Search Engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The components involved in landing the top position include:

  • Keyword Analysis
  • Optimizing Content
  • Link Building
  • Making Content Easy to Share

Today’s Focus: How to complete a Keyword Analysis?

The Keyword Analysis process will generate the highest return in your SEO activities, and help you get your target audience to your website via search engines. Let your potential customers find you rather than you spending time and money to find potential customers by completing a Keyword Analysis.

The process of conducting a keyword analysis consists of three parts. The purpose is to determine what keyword phrases will help you appear on the first pages of the search engine results page, and then, you want to use these keyword phrases in your marketing copy, editorial content, any titles, and html tags used on your website.

To keep generating positive results from your SEO activities, your Keyword Analysis needs to be conducted on a regular basis as potential customers change the words they use to search for your products/services or how Google tweaks their algorithm.

Part 1 – Generate a list of your Website’s Keyword Phrases

Knowing that the average number of words entered into the search box on search engines are 3 to 4 words, your keywords are more like Keyword Phrases where each Keyword Phrase should be no more than 4 words. By including key phrases instead of keywords on your list, you decrease your competition for your keywords.

To help determine your keyword phrases talk to your sales teams and customers to see what search terms or phrases they use when looking for your products and services.

Part 2 – Determine the Competition for your Keyword Phrases

For each and every  keyword phrase on your list, enter it into Google.com with quotes around each keyword phrase . Look for the “About … results” in grey in the upper left hand section of the screen, and this will tell you how many pages contain your keyword phrase.

Why do we use quotes for this search?
Because Google will give us results with the exact match to what you searched for. Let’s say we are searching for SEO Management. If we use quotes around the phrase, we will get results where SEO Management appear next to each other. If you entered SEO Management without the quotes, you will get results where SEO and Management appear on the page, but SEO and Management don’t appear together. Using the quotes gives you an accurate picture of your competition.

Part 3 – Determine the Search Volume for your Keyword Phrases

  1. Create a list of your Keyword Phrases into Excel and Save the file as a CSV file (make sure the file only contains your Keyword Phrases)
  2. Login to your Google Adwords Account
  3. Under Tools and Analysis select Keyword Planner
  4. Click “Get Search Volume for a list of Keywords or group them into ad groups”
  5. Upload the CSV file with your keyword phrases
  6. Click “Get Search Volume”
  7. Select the “Keyword Ideas” Tab to see your results

After completing parts 1, 2, and 3, you may end up with an excel spreadsheet that looks similar to what you see below if you were looking for a Keyword Phrase about SEO for your website:

Keyword Phrase Google results with Quotes Average Monthly Searches Competition
SEO 191,000,000 90,500 High
SEO Management 207,000 480 High
Starting SEO 10,400 10 Medium
Planning SEO 17,600 10 Low

Given the data in the above table for potential keyword phrases about SEO, I many continue to play around with the words for my SEO Keyword Phrase until I find a SEO phrase that generates about 10,000 Google results and an average monthly searches around 400 with a Low to Medium Competition.

What do you have to look forward to for the rest of the week from Cindy Plough’s Digital Marketing Manager Blog?

Weekday Topic
Tomorrow Email Marketing
Wednesday Social Media
Thursday Content Marketing
Friday Mobile Marketing
Next Monday More SEO

I look forward to writing about email marketing tomorrow, so ta ta for now.

Resources for Keyword Analysis:

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Learn More about Digital Marketing Manager, Cindy Plough