SEO Keyword Research Step 2.4: Expand the List by ‘Building’ Keywords

We’ve already touched on this step in Step 1, but now’s a good time to revisit the idea. At this point, we’re going to add to our list of keywords by “building” a phrase. We’re going to take some of the core terms or phrases you already have, and add important qualifiers to create a longer phrase.

All else being equal, the ideal keyword phrase will be 2 to 5 words long. Any shorter, and the competition will likely be too intense.

Source: Stoney deGeyter

You can also go longer. It’s true that you risk using a phrase for which no one searches, but this is where “long tail” keywords come in. What exactly that means exceeds the scope of the post; I’ll write another entry about long tail down the road.

For the moment, suffice it to say that any given long phrase might get few searches, but your site might get cumulatively more searches for all its long phrases than more basic keywords. It’s virtually impossible to optimize intentionally for long tail keyword searches; that’s part of the reason why it’s important to write keywords organically into your text rather than just inserting lists of potential keywords.

Geo-target

This simply means to specify your geographic location in your keyword. This won’t be useful for everyone, but for others it will be imperative. For this site, I might combine “Dallas” + “Freelance” + “Copywriter.” If I wanted to emphasize SEO, I might even create a phrase like “Dallas freelance SEO copywriter.”

Use intent words

People generally use search engines for one of three purposes:

1. Research and information-gathering
2. Shopping, comparing and searching for a desired service or product
3. Buying the desired service or product

In most cases (though not all), it’s wise to optimize your website for all three purposes, but you won’t optimize each individual page for all three.

To capture the first kind of search, your site might include high-level category pages and information articles, reviews, FAQs, advice, how-to guides, etc. You can use those pages to funnel traffic to other pages in your site. Intent words include research, information, best, how to. These keywords do not convert well, but they can bring traffic to your site for people who are interested generally in your product or service.

To capture the second kind of search, your site may have product or service category pages. People have buying interest, but they’re in the early phases. There’s overlap with the first kind of search, but it’s more narrowly focused: instead of looking for information generally, they’re looking for information with interest in possibly making a purchase. Words might be best, recommended, review or reviews.

Finally, to capture the key buying phrases, your site should have pages dedicated to each particular service or product. People using these phrases are ready to purchase; they’re looking for a product or service to buy, and buy now. Words include shop, buy, purchase, need, needed, want, wanted, find. These are the phrases with the best conversion ratios because they capture the traffic that is most primed to convert. Your strongest sales pitch should go on these pages.

You want to include intent words in your final keyword phrases, at least some of them. Otherwise, you will miss out on the most targeted traffic.

Descriptors

Descriptors, or qualifiers, describe your product or service in greater detail. They’re usually adjectives, and usually positive. Fast, quick, cheap, discount, quality, black, blue, red, durable, lightweight, easy, simple… The list could go on and on. What qualifiers apply to your product or service? Build phrases using any kind of qualifier that (1) applies to your business and (2) would be sufficiently meaningful to your customers that they might use it in their searches.

Stemming variations

Finally, go back through the list you’ve developed and add variations.

1. Word endings. This would include singular versus plural, -ed versus -ing, etc. At this point, we don’t know if writer gets more traffic than writers, or if writing gets more than either. Maybe written gets more traffic than any of the above. Who knows? We’ll figure that out in the next step. Right now, just capture variations on your keyword list.
2. Misspellings. People don’t always spell correctly when they’re doing a search, so you might want to include common misspellings on your page. There are some easy ways to do this without making it look like you made an error yourself. My name is correctly spelled “Goulde,” but it’s commonly misspelled “Gould.” I might add a comment at the bottom of my page: “My name is Richard Goulde. Were you looking for Richard Gould? Well, if you want copywriting, who cares how I spell my name – you’ve found an expert!”
3. Regional terminology. This depends on the geographic area in which you do business. If you’re purely local, it won’t matter. But if you do nationwide or international business, you need to take into account the fact that different regions using different words for the same thing. Soda versus pop, for example. Or elevator in the U.S., which is lift in the U.K.

Putting it all together

Ultimately, you may combine built phrases with new qualifiers or other built phrases for inclusion on the website. For our purposes, however, don’t worry about researching phrases longer than 4 words. The results will be predictable: much lower competition with extremely low search volume. Therefore, it’s not a wise investment of time to research long phrases in-depth.

We’ll come back to this exercise (again) after we’ve completed the research.

Recommended Reading: Stoney deGeyter’s “Comprehensive Guide to Keyword Research, Selection & Organization”

The “keyword ROI” image above is from deGeyter’s guide. My own guide to keyword research is a bit more action-oriented than his, and it also delves more deeply into interpreting the research. Nevertheless, his stellar article does a fantastic job of illuminating how the philosophy and process behind keyword research impacts its implementation.