SEO Recap – Keywords and Niche Websites

Keyword analysis can be quickly and efficiently handled on many levels by the SEO firm responsible for handling the overall campaign, but in an ideal world the  business owner rather than the SEO company should be the driving force behind the initial keyword analysis or keyword research process.

This is simply because the business owner is expected to understand better than anyone else both the business niche to which the website belongs and the business model it will operate under. The business owner will also be more knowledgeable about his target customer base, their needs, and above all his product or service. This means the business owner needs to be intimately involved from the beginning with brainstorming sessions, keyword approval, and content development.

Don’t retreat into a cave while analyzing your keywords or performing your keyword research. Your competition and the latest trends should be evaluated and taken into account for maximum effectiveness. Independent brainstorming should preceded the action of using one of the many keywords suggestion tools available, and should include key members of the business team as well as SEO savvy team members who can incorporate the results into a full fledged SEO game plan for the new website.

Start at the beginning with your primary keywords. First list the single word primary keywords, then the two word primary key phrases, then the three word primary keyword strings. Stop at five words – that is the longest string practical.  Under each keyword or keyword phrase on your initial list of primary keywords, start listing your secondary keywords. While primary keywords are words that are directly related to your core business, products or services, secondary ones branch out into different aspects, helping you cover all possible search queries that your customers might use.

Your primary keywords should be implemented in the title of the webpage, head tags, domain name, URL of that particular page, website content, and so on. Here is an example of primary and secondary keywords: if you offer copywriting services, then your primary keyword could be, “copywriting services” and your secondary keywords could be something like, “web copywriting” “sales copywriting”, “brochure copywriting”, etc. The secondary keywords should attempt to capture the traffic that is looking for specific services that are related to the main or core services.

When your selected primary keywords turn out to have too much competition to let you have an initial prayer of making the top page of results, concentrate on the long tail – the hundreds of people that don’t search using the most obvious keywords, or who define their search with additional words that make them more focused, valuable customers to target!

Improvise your strategy and start including long tail keywords as your primary for some pages, bolstered by solid, tested secondary keywords. These will vary from niche to niche, so again, make sure the business owner is kept heavily involved in the keyword analysis. Over time, hundreds of keywords and keyword phrases can be utilized as the site grows and new content is continually added.