Keywords are of primary significance in any SEO or SEM project, but to determine which keywords perform best is always tricky. From a list of hundreds or maybe thousands of keywords that you may have gathered using your favorite keyword selection program, it is always a challenge to pick the ones most appropriate for you.
In my opinion, keywords are of three basic types:
1)The ones you desire,
2) The actual phrases that people type in search boxes, and
3) the keywords that stimulate searchers for action, or in other words perform Call to Action.
It is important to realize the value of keywords and use the most appropriate ones in each scenario to maximize your keyword conversions and improve keyword rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).
The following points are noteworthy in selecting most appropriate keywords.
Consider the Search Volume
After you have compiled your initial research and gathered tons of keywords, simply log in to Google's Keyword Selector Tool (my recommendation) or Word Tracker or any other tool that gives you search volume comparison.
Now, one by one put all your keywords or preferable phrases in these tools and note the search volumes, advertiser completion, etc. After the list is compiled you need to arrange it by ascending or descending number of search volume (i.e. number of searches in a given period of time; the higher the better!). The ones with negligible search volume or no volume at all should be neglected at this point and you should focus on the ones that have the search volume.
If you have a big SEO budget, just focus on the keywords with the most search volume and try to optimize your pages for these. If you utilize the right SEO plan & strategy, you will soon be getting visits, and with time your rankings will improve.
Another benefit with High Search Volume Keywords is that they somewhat represent the actual behaviors of people searching online and hence you will have better chances of getting clicks.
Consider Advertiser Competition
Right from the above compiled data you can get another important factor to consider, the Advertiser Competition (i.e. number of people buying ads on those keywords indicates business value!). Whether you are looking for keywords for organic search optimization or Adwords, it is always important to consider the advertiser competition. Higher advertiser competition is a way to judge the performance of keywords, and which ones drive conversion. Actually this technique is based on the theory of “following the competitors” the more the competitors the higher the conversion value that keyword/phrase contains.
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