Identifying relevant keywords

To identify relevant, high-quality keywords, ask yourself the following questions: How relevant is the term/phrase to the content, services, products, or information on your site? Terms that are highly relevant will convert better than terms that are ancillary to your content’s focus. Assuming a visitor who searches for that term clicks on your result in the SERPs, what is the likelihood that she’ll perform a desired action on your site (make a purchase, subscribe to a newsletter, etc.), create a link to your site, or influence others to visit?

It is a good idea to target keywords that indicate imminent action (e.g., buy cranium board game, best prices for honda civic), because searchers are more likely to perform the corresponding action on your site when they search for those terms than they are for terms such as honda civic or cranium board game. Your click-through/conversion rates are likely to be higher if you target keywords that indicate the intent behind the search.

How many people who search for this term will come to your site and leave dissatisfied?

Pay attention to your site’s content and compare it to what other sites in the top results are offering—are these sites doing or offering something that you haven’t thought of? Do you feel as though these sites offer a more positive user experience? If so, see what you can learn from these sites and possibly emulate on your own.

You can also use an analytics program and check to see which of your pages have the highest abandonment rates. See what you can change on those pages to improve user experience and increase users’ level of enjoyment when using your site.

It is important to categorize your keywords into high and low relevance. Generally, keywords of higher relevance will be more beneficial to your site in that they best represent your site as a whole. If, when judging the relevance of a keyword, you answer “yes” to the preceding questions, you’ve found a highly relevant term and should include it in your targeting.

Keywords with lower relevance than those that lead to conversions can still be great terms to target. A keyword might be relevant to your site’s content but have a low relevance to your business model. In this case, if you target that keyword, when a user clicks on your site and finds the content to be valuable she is more likely to return to the site, remember your brand, and potentially link to your site or suggest it to a friend. Low-relevance keywords, therefore, present a great opportunity to strengthen the branding of your site. This type of brand value can lead to return visits by those users when they are more likely to convert.

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