⚽ How to set your keywords strategy

Wondering what keywords are? Read here!

In the same article we have explained why keywords are so important so you understand why you have to set your best strategy by choosing the best keywords.

And by this we mean the most relevant keywords to our business.

Selecting the right keywords requires in-depth keywords research taking into account many other parameters such as:

- Competition

- Volume of the search

- Cost of the acquisition

I remember one of my mentors saying that “selecting the right mix of keywords is more than just a science, it is an art”..I know that it may sound a bit theatrical but believe me it is not.

Many moons ago the selection of the keywords was simple a few steps, nowadays you need a careful analysis. Of course, there are many tools (with a paid subscription) which most professionals use to find the right keywords but for a beginner my opinion is that you must start from the basics to understand the concept and then move to advanced tools.

You will never understand the philosophy of a good strategy if you don’t research, test, analyse and again...research...test.. .

How to start your keywords list?

I will suggest a few simple steps:

1. Start writing down what words or phrases someone will use to search for your products or services

2. Google’s search bar (for long tail keywords)

3. Keywords planner

4. Google Trends

5. Infinite Suggest

1. The first step that anyone should do is to start writing down what words a person would use if it is to search over the internet for your products or services.

I.e If I am selling Digital Marketing Services most probably someone in need of my services will search with:

·        Digital marketing services in Cyprus

·        Digital marketing services

·        Search Engine Optimization or SEO

·        SEM Search Engine Management

·        Website development

·        Online advertising

·        Social Media Management.

Or maybe for someone less familiarized with such terms:

·        Online marketing

·        Internet marketing

·        Website management

·        Facebook advertisement

Of course this is not a task that you will do in 10 minutes. Take your time, listen to other people’s needs, join communities with small businesses owners..etc

As you can see the phrase is composed of 5 words: Digital Marketing Services in Cyprus.

This is what we call “long tail keywords”. As SEO progressed and Google algorithm became more sophisticated and ranking on the first page became a war against invisible forces long tail keywords targeting became THE LIFELINE OF A SUCCESSFUL KEYWORDS STRATEGY.

2. A very easy way to fill out a list with long tail keywords is the Google search bar. Simply type 1-2 words and watch how it pre-populates the rest of what you are typing.

Google’s algorithm is constructed to record searcher’s intention. However, beware that the algorithm takes into account also your search history (except if you always search incognito or delete periodically your search history). Nonetheless, this step will get you started with some ideas to play around.  

3. The third step is the use of Google’s Keyword Planner.

Keyword Planner is a free Google Ads tool for new or experienced advertisers where you can search for keywords and see how a list of keywords might perform.

There are rumors that the data in keyword planner is manipulated and the volume and bits are not real data, but personally I learned over the years to read, learn, test and analyse instead of believing rumors. So, my advice is to get into keywords planner and test. Analytics will give you the data after all and you can see what works and what doesn’t.

So you have to open an account on Google Ads platform and go to the little wrench on the top right where it says tools.

Then go to the place where it says “Find new keywords”

As you click on that it will open the bar where you can search for suggestions...Be aware that you can only insert up to 3 words or phrases.

Then a list like this it will appear and then you have to decide which ones are your best keywords.

At this point you will have to take into account the 3 factors mentioned above:

- Volume of the search

- Competition

- Cost of the acquisition

On the top bar you can see “Avg. monthly searches”. This is what we call volume of search or how many people searched over Google for these particular words. To target people with these keywords, of course, we need people to search for these keywords. You may decide that some particular keywords are very good for your business but if you don’t find volume of search it means that people are not searching with these words. However, there are cases where you may decide for certain reasons to choose a word or a phrase with lower volume than others but I will explain this at a later stage.

As you can see from the image the keywords with biggest volume are “SEO”, “digital marketing”, “keyword” and “keyword planner”.

But, “keyword” and “keyword planner” are not of our interest since a person who searched for “keyword planner” most probably has SEO skills so they are not looking for our services.

The next column is about the competition. We want keywords that have low competition. We don’t need a high competition since this will increase the bid and make the ranking more difficult!

As it can be noticed “digital marketing” has a Medium competition. From now we will reject it from our list. (I need to mention here that I am simplifying the process just to help the beginners understand the general concept. In an article for advanced SEO I will delve deeper into the subject). So from now I will take out also “digital marketing”

As it can be noticed at the bottom of the page there is “SEO services”. This phrase could be our best keywords. We offer “SEO services” so the normal thing to think is that I want to target people that search for “SEO services”. But as you can see besides the competition (which is Medium), the cost of acquisition is between 0.62 to 12.07 which means that the highest bid can reach 12.07 euros.

This is too high cost of acquisition.

In general lines what we can keep from this list is the “SEO”

Of course SEO on its own is quite difficult to target but stay tuned for our next article where we will get deeper into keywords strategies, Google trends and Infinite suggest.