Posted by: Leslie Russell, Senior Marketing Coordinator
Where has the time gone? It has been over a year since you last updated the metadata so important to your website’s search engine optimization (SEO), you can’t remember when the content on your site was last updated and some of your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising keywords seem a little stale. Now is the time to see which keywords have been performing, revamp your keyword list and get a refreshed search engine marketing strategy rolled out.
Start off by doing a little investigation on the success of your last keyword strategy.
Phase 1: Research
· Review your site in-depth. Have you updated content or removed content? Are you keeping pace with trends in your industry?
· Glance at your key competitors’ websites. Are they using different language and keywords throughout their content or metadata? Reviewing their sites may spark additional ideas for your keyword strategy.
· Pull analytics reports looking at non-paid and paid keywords. Consider if all of these terms are still relevant, or if there are new terms you haven’t considered before.
· Use keyword tools to gather recommendations of adjectives, synonyms, plurals, etc.
· Take a look your organic and paid visibility. Are you getting exposure for the keywords you consider most important? If not consider how to make those words a higher priority in your refreshed keyword strategy.
Phase 2: Creating the Universe
After gathering results from your research it is time to begin creating a keyword universe.
· Pull search popularity.
· Consider keyword length (keep in mind that about 85% of searches are comprised of queries 4 words or less).
· Take a look at the competition and relevancy of keywords by performing searches to better understand the landscape.
· Consider user behavior. Remember to put yourself in the searcher’s shoes while reviewing and updating your keyword strategy. What you think of as the perfect keyword may not be how the actual searcher sees your products, offerings or site.
Phase 3: Narrowed Recommendations
You have an entire list of potential keywords, and now you need to slim it down.
· Analyze and weigh all of the factors considered when working on the universe phase.
· Determine which words get the green light, and which keywords get removed, based on this process.
Once you have analyzed all the keywords and decided which ones to move forward with it is now time to update content, refresh metadata and revise your PPC campaigns. Happy optimizing!
