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Choosing Keywords: The Process

Now you have an idea of both how to find common and niche keywords. The fun begins!

Start with a blank piece of paper, document file, or a whiteboard. You can do this alone, with co-workers, your business consultant, a friend or two. Your very best bet is to find people that are part of your target market demographic willing to help you with this.

Once you start your list, you can do your keyword identification over a period of days or even weeks if you have the time. New ideas may crop up once you start the process and your brain starts working on it behind the scenes. You may have an “aha!” moment while watching a movie or reading a magazine. Keep your eyes open.

Brainstorm. Write everything down. Do a keyword idea page for every page of your site that you want people to land on.  (If you have placed most or all of your services on one page, you may need to rethink that. Having a dedicated page for every service you offer gives you valuable keywording opportunities.)

Research using free online tools like Google Adwords keyword tool, Wordtracker free trial, or other tools you find through a Google search. Also search your choices directly in Google and see what happens. What sites show up? Are the results helpful, or likely to cause the person to try another search? Do you get other keyword ideas from the results?

Always check out the competition in your area, but also in other places. What searches do they show up for? Look at highly ranked sites and see what keywords they are using to get ideas.

Cut your list down to a manageable size based on your findings. Save other possible good ideas for later in a keyword file.

Tweak and finish by prioritizing your list by your most important keywords and geographical target area.

Remember, keywords can be adjusted, content can be tweaked. DO NOT obsess or worry, just do your best. If you’ve hired a content writer and/or a professional SEO person they will help steer you away from any mistakes, and will also help you if you miss anything obvious.

Give your finished list to your content writer.

CONGRATULATIONS!

The Keywording Series

• What is a Keyword?

• Keyword Strategies: Finding Better Keywords

• Choosing your Keywords

Key Point

There are no right or wrong answers. You can target whatever keywords you choose. A balance between obvious and niche keywords is a good, safe strategy.

Key Point

People get stuck on how many keywords they need,  but as long as you prioritize your list, don't worry if you think there might be too many. Your content writer can choose as many as will fit comfortably and work well with the information on the page and length of the content. Your SEO person will know to use the top priority keywords in the high value optimization spots.

That said, a good rule of thumb is to have one main phrase (and a list of the common variations of it or longer versions with "niche" qualifiers) plus up to 4 accessory phrases. It is good to note a list of the single important words that make up your phrases. Sometimes a phrase cannot be easily repeated, but one or two of the words can be in SEO spots or the content. It's nice for the content writer and SEO to have a list of important words as well as specific phrases.

Key Point

Remember SEO is a balancing act between a site that reads well to humans and informs search engines.

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