Seo Keyword Research Process And Methodology - A Keyword Research Case Study

Here is an example of the keyword research process that Keysearch Analytics employs in order to begin a new client SEO strategy outline.
Who Are the Customers?

Defining who the customer is is vital to developing a good SEO strategy. If you can't determine who your customers are, your client's customers, then chances are you won't be able to select the right keywords to target them. Here are some quick questions to ask yourself or your client to help pin down your customer:

1. Who are the stakeholders in the sales cycle? - For instance, in some B2B sales cycles there are four or five different stakeholders who must sign off on your product. Do you have a strategy to reach these different interests the way they might search for your product? Check out this article on SEO B2B Lead Generation more info on the B2B Sales Cycle.

2. Who signs the check or pulls out the credit card? Simple right? Not always. In some situations, the person who wants to implement your product may not have a say in the purchasing process. Perhaps a contractor wants to use your product, but entity that funds the project is looking to cut costs, and doesn't understand the energy saving benefits of your product.

3. Do I Know All my Potential Customers? - Are there customers you haven't thought of? Chances are good that there are. Your customers can be anyone who can benefit from your product. Maybe your site sells solar panels. Your customers are not just people searching for "solar panels". They are people searching for "ways to save energy" or "saving money on energy" or "green technology products for the home". Not only are you grabbing potential customers earlier along in the buying process, but you are increasing organic traffic to your site by increasing the long tail of keywords that drive traffic to your site.
Who Are the Competitors?

Identifying the Competitors is just as important, if not more, as identifying the customer. By understanding the competitor's keyword strategy, you can isolate their strengths and weaknesses.
Competitive Keyword Research

Once you have established your competitors, it is time to research their keyword strategy. Here are some essential steps to understanding the competition:

1. Run your competitor's website through the Google Keyword Tool. This will find most of the keywords that Google associates with their site.

2. Run your competitors keywords through an organic rank checker such as Firefox Rank Checker.

3. Isolate the keywords that are driving traffic to their site. If they are ranked competitively for a keyword with large search volume, then that is an important keyword to their strategy.

4. Keep a spreadsheet with the competition top ranked keywords and run the rankings every month. Keeping track of how their rankings are changing can tell you which keywords they are spending time optimizing.

Keyword Research Process

The goal is to find the terms that are most relevant and valuable for Client based on their business model and client demographic information. Keywords can be in silos targeting specific verticals of the customer demographic. Research the competitions keyword rankings for targeted keywords. Distill keyword list down to 15-20 initial keywords to begin targeting aggressively. Come up with 100-200 longer tail terms to target peripherally. Provide keyword report on competitions keyword rankings vs. Client and highlight keyword strategy.

Keyword Research Methodology

The keyword categories will be attained by consultation with Client in conjunction with SEM and SEO keyword research tools. The first step will be to use the Google Keyword Tool to analyze the Client website and competitive websites to come up with popular keyword categories. Once the relevant keyword categories have been established, an initial report of relevant keywords is run for each category with the Google Keyword Tool. This list of keywords will show the term, the average monthly search volume, last months available search volume, and the Adwords competition level indicator. The competition level indicator shows the amount of PPC competition for a particular keyword. Normally this correlates well with SEO competition because if a keyword has high paid search competition, it is usually a quality keyword that brings in revenue. Once the initial keyword research is done with the Google Keyword Tool, all the keywords are then run through an organic rankings tool such as Firefox Rank Checker to determine Client's organic rankings for each keyword. Then the same keywords are run for Clients top competitors to get their organic rankings. Once we know the paid and organic competitive landscape for all relevant keywords, we can begin to formulate a strategy for increasing our organic rankings.

Organic Ranking Strategy


The overall objective with the Client organic ranking strategy is to drive quality, relevant traffic to the new Client website with the final result being an increase in leads and sales. To do this, we need to have comprehensive SEO strategy. Since SEO is a long term and ongoing process a good SEO strategy is to target a mixture of head, medium and long tail terms.

Head Keywords

Head terms are higher volume keywords that are usually more competitive and more general such as snowboards" or "lamps". These terms are harder to rank for and are targeted for a long term SEO strategy. It can take several years to rank on the first page for Head terms in many cases, and a lot of time and energy as well. If and when Client can rank for higher volume head terms, there will be a significant increase in traffic to the site. This traffic may not be as relevant, but do to the high volume it is very beneficial to have for a variety of reasons. However if we just target head terms, we will see no short or medium term uptick in organic traffic and may never in fact rank well for the head terms. That is why we need to target medium and long tail keywords as well.

Medium Volume Keywords

Medium volume keywords or body keywords are typically the most beneficial to an organic rankings campaign. With good keyword research, it is usually possible to find terms with decent search volume that have a low competition index and are more relevant. These terms are easier to rank well for than the head but have more competition than the long tail. Medium keywords are usually targeted to rank well in 6-12 months with sustained effort. In some cases we can find quick wins, but normally if a keyword is lucrative, it has at least some competition actively working on ranking well for that keyword.

Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords make up over 50% of search engine traffic. They are highly specific and relevant terms that have low volume and usually low competition. They can be very valuable however. Long Tail keywords are usually searched by a customer farther along in the buying process who knows specifically what they are looking for. By ranking well for a variety of long tail keywords, you can start to build significant amounts of relevant traffic from many different sources. With a new website and SEO campaign, long tail keywords are the lowest hanging fruit. Long Tail Keywords also provide the most immediate impact on organic traffic. These terms are usually capable of ranking well in 3-6 months.

Keyword Research Methodology Conclusion

It is important to understand that just by targeting specific keywords on a page is no guarantee that they will rank well. It is usually not enough simply to optimize a website for organic rankings and then expect them to climb the search engine results pages. Typically, this is where the hard work of Off-Site SEO begins. It is necessary to get inbound links from quality, relevant websites with that particular keyword phrase. The more quality inbound links a site has with the appropriate anchor text for that keyword, the more likely it will rank higher. There are many other factors that go into Googles ranking algorithm. But by following the On-Site and Off-Site recommendations, we can significantly increase our chances for ranking well organically for our chosen targeted terms.