Utah SEO | Utah Search Engine Optimization » keyword research

Difficulty Tool for Keyword Analysis

toddjensen — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:12:08 +0000

Everyone around the office knows I’m an SEOmoz homer. I love their tools and trust their data, and this extends to their research tools. We use SEOmoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool during our Keyword Analysis phase quite a bit. We use the number it produces to help us know if how competitive the phrase will be, and how long it will take us to rank there. It really helps us to manage our expectations and determine the effort and time required to dominate for a particular phrase.

If the number is ranked below 40% then we know we will be able to dominate in a fairly short period of time. Between 40-60% and it will require a significant effort, with a lot of content and link building required. Over 60% will require a long time (8 months or so) and a significant investment of time each month.

In this short tutorial I walk you through the tool and show you a thing or two that I pay particular attention to.

If you use a similar tool, I’d love to hear about it- and do a review. Feel free to add any recommendations you may have.

Keyword Analysis: Python Swallows the Rodent

toddjensen — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:59:49 +0000

Keyword Analysis requires a thorough process of, first, generating a large list of phrase ideas, and then refining the list to a workable group that will focus all SEO efforts. We utilize what we call the ‘Python Swallows the Rodent‘ approach. Basically, it outlines the process of gathering a few keyword ideas, then greatly increasing the list to include all possible money-making phrases and then using our tools and expertise to refine the list to create a final short list of phrases that will drive the right type of traffic to the site.

Several times during the process, we get the client involved, as they generally have a good feel for the keywords that make them the most money as well as an intuition for what their customers may be typing. However, we then take their feedback and leverage our tools and experience to refine the list- focusing on those that are achievable, and will bring the most qualified traffic. The video below overviews our strategy. Future tutorials will go into much more detail into how we actually carry out each phase of the process.

Enjoy!

Keyword Research- Google Suggestion Tool

toddjensen — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:24:21 +0000

We use Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool every single day- especially during the Keyword Analysis phase of an SEO campaign. A few distinctions must be made when looking at the available features. Key understandings must include:

:: The difference between Global Searches and Local Searches
:: What happens to the displayed keyword ideas when the ‘Show related terms…’ option is selected
:: The difference between the Broad and Exact filtering options

Each of these is demonstrated in the short tutorial below. Enjoy, and let us know what you think. Any other critical features that I missed?

Don't Forget the Long Tail

toddjensen — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:38:45 +0000

Much has been said about long tail searches, and the video below illustrates how important these unique, less searched phrases can be to your site traffic. It is critical that you pay some attention to them as an SEO. Sometimes as much as 75% of your overall site traffic can be attributed to the long tail phrases.

So, what is a longtail phrase? Basically, it is a search phrase that is longer and more specific, for example:

Cowboy boots= short phrase, with huge search volume (currently TK has a client ranking on the first page for this hot phrase )

Care for rattle snake skin cowboy boot= long phrase, less search volume

Add up a bunch of these long tail phrases, and you often get significant search volume.