SEO Keyword Research Step 1: Build Your Basic Keyword List

The Basic Keyword List

1. Just sit down and list out every relevant word and phrase that comes to mind. Remember, most of your keywords will be between 2 and 5 words long, so we want more than just single words. Don’t censor yourself at this point – list everything you can think of.
2. List all the products and services you offer, and/or all the subjects or topics your website covers.
3. Is there some aspect of your services that potential customers might search for? “Discount rates,” for example? “Fast turnaround?” “Blue widget” instead of red? Aluminum construction instead of steel? And so on.
4. Read your existing website. Do any words or phrases already in there jump out as keywords? Are any words or phrases repeated, particularly within a single page?
5. Review your current website’s analytics, if you have them. This means a web traffic monitoring service like Google Analytics, StatCounter, GoStats, etc. You can use these services to see what searches have previously led visitors to your site, and those searches will give you an idea of the keywords that are already working for you. (If you don’t have any analytics running, it’s a great idea to sign up, but as far as keyword research goes, you can skip this step).
6. Consider the jargon of your particular industry, service or subject. Remember to stay customer-centric, though. What good is insider jargon if the people you want to visit your site don’t know it? For example, in banking you find all kinds of terms and acronyms for procedures, software, government agencies, federal regulations, etc. It’s all crucial behind-the-scenes, but all those terms are irrelevant to the bank’s customers.
7. Talk to others – colleagues, employees, management, even friends if they know your business or industry. Ask them to brainstorm with you. It’s especially useful to involve people “on the ground,” like your sales force, because they are the most likely to know the ideal customer mindset well.
8. You might take some of your single-words and “build” a keyword phrase from them. Consider “Dallas” + “Freelance” + “Copywriter.” If I wanted to emphasize SEO, I might even create a phrase like “Dallas freelance SEO copywriter.”
9. Above all else, remember your customers. Ultimately, we’re trying to find the terms they’ll be using to find a company like yours. So what are they looking for exactly, when they want to find a company like yours? What are their goals? What’s the value you bring to them, or the problem you solve?

At this point, don’t worry too much about variations (like singular versus plural). Part of our goal at this point is to keep the research manageable, so we don’t want to complicate things too early. We’ll deal with variations in spelling, punctuation, regional terminology, international terminology, and singular vs. plural in a future step.

Organizing the Keyword Research

If you haven’t already figured it out, keyword research can be a lengthy process with a lot of information to track. Good organization is essential.

I suggest keeping your list in a spreadsheet, which makes managing, organizing and sorting the data much easier.

1. Create a new workbook for the web page (not for your entire site) on which you’re focusing. Remember, not every page in your site is going to be a landing page from a search engine, so you don’t have to do keyword research on all of them.
2. Rename one of the worksheets “Step 1.”
   

Step by step, here’s how I do it.

1. Start writing the terms. Mostly likely, you’ll notice the keywords can grouped according to theme. For example, my copywriting services encompass both printed marketing collateral and web content. Those are two very different kinds of writing. Give each theme its own column so you can keep the groups distinct.
   
2. Now, name the first column Keyword Set (or alternatively, Common Term), and the second Keyword.
3. 3. Cut and paste the keywords from the first theme group into the second column, and in the Keyword Set column enter a word or phrase that describes that group of keywords.
4. Repeat for the other groups of keywords.
5. Finally, go back and change the text color so that each group of keywords is a different color.
   
6. Name the third column Advertiser Competition, the fourth Last Month Search Volume, and the fifth Avg Search Volume.

Are you confused why I’m organizing the list this way? Trust me: it pays off down the road.

(Okay, okay, if you’re really that curious, I’ll give you a hint: I’m setting up the spreadsheet to easily integrate data from the Google AdWords Keyword Tool while at the same time keeping it easily workable).

Conclusion

Whew! Now you have a basic keyword list. Hopefully you have at least 10 to 15 keywords, but you may have dozens or even hundreds. At this point in our keyword party, the more the merrier!

Over the next few steps, we will expand the list quite a bit.