Keyword Strategies for Hybrid SEO/PPC Search Campaigns - Creating a Preliminary Keyword List
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The goal is to create one consistent keyword list for both your paid search and organic search campaigns. This does not mean that your list of keywords will be the same for both tactics. Rather, you'll have one main keyword list and each word will be assigned to SEO, PPC or both. Start by brainstorming what you believe your primary keywords would be once your site is live (or for your existing site). Using a spreadsheet (my spreadsheet program of choice is Excel), list as many keywords as you can. Here is an example of a preliminary list of words from my perspective as an Internet marketing consultant.
TERM | PPC | SEO | BOTH |
Internet marketing | | X | |
Internet marketing consultant | | | X |
E-marketing consultant | | | X |
SEO consultant | | | X |
SEO expert | X | | |
Web marketing expert | X | | |
I've created this list based on the content that already exists on my website or content I intend to create. It is counterproductive to target keywords that are not supported on your website. For example, although I am capable of developing an email marketing campaign, it is not my specialty and I do not focus on this on my website. If I wanted to target the term "email marketing" I would first need to create some relevant content on the site in the form of articles, informational Web pages about the service and/or blog entries to support this term. I would then need to get some back links from sites that discuss the topic of email marketing.
If I just insert the term in the home page or on one or two interior pages then I will likely see poor results in the SERPs for this term. Since "email marketing" is a highly competitive term, the sites that rank well will have a lot of supporting content (entire websites devoted to the term) and relevant back links. I cannot hope to compete for top positions for this term until my own site reflects topically the term I am trying to target.
It is helpful to look at your competitors' websites and see what language and themes they are focusing on. Don't just look at Meta and Title tags, read the actual content. Try to get a sense of the structure of the site. What are the categories? What markets are they targeting? Add terms to your list as you do this and flag terms that present key opportunities. Ideally, these will be terms that are not heavily targeted on your competitors' sites, will help to differentiate you, and have a decent search volume.
Finally, you can use any number of free tools to get a list of synonymous terms that complement your ever-growing list of keywords. Google has a free tool that will display thematically-relevant terms to words you're researching ( https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox). Just enter a keyword into the search box and Google returns a list of terms from actual searches. When I searched for "Internet marketing" I got a list of terms that included this term and, interestingly, a list of additional terms that these same searchers entered into the search field even though they didn't include "Internet marketing."
Next: Forecasting Search Volumes and Assigning Your Terms >>
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