Not all Organic Keywords are Created Equal

As with sponsored search engine marketing, choosing the right keywords for organic site optimization is essential for strong ROI. Beyond the marketing basics of knowing your site products, site objectives, target market and competitive online environment, choosing the right keywords involves other factors; including:

• Relevance of keyword to site and target customer
• Size of site (your site should have far more pages than target keywords)
• Quality and quantity of on-site content
• Viability of visibility for each keyword (is it possible to get strong visibility based on the sites that are already present)
• Volume of searches for each keyword

The keywords that you choose for your site should be directly related to the content on your site and to your target customer - failing to 'connect' these two will cost you leads. For example, if your site sells custom support socks called the 'Smart Socks 1000' with only a modest brand 'top-of-mind' awareness, then your keyword selection should reflect the fact that in addition to your product name, you will need to go after search terms that your target customer are more likely to use - such as 'support socks.'

The quality, relevance, and volume of your site content is used by search engines as a major factor in determining your organic listing visibility. There are definitely other factors that determine where a listing appears on a search engine results page (SERP); however, relevant, meaningful content will please both search engines and site visitors. Your keywords need to be an integral part of your content. Choosing a keyword is not reflected in the site's content is self-defeating. Your keywords, as shown in the listing title on the SERP, are a signal to your target customer of what they can expect to find if the decide to click on your organic listing. You control what is shown in the SERP title, as it is pulled directly from the title tag on your website page. Play it straight with searchers - deliver on what your listing title promises and you will have happier visitors on your site.

This next item requires brutal honesty. Will your site ever be able to successfully compete for organic placement alongside the sites that are currently listing for the keyword you have chosen? If you have chosen a keyword that puts you in direct competition with many huge 'expert' sites such as government sites or sites with Google Page Rank of 8 or higher, it would be overly optimistic to think that your 15 page site with a Google Page Rank of 4 will achieve high visibility next to these 'category killers.' This does not mean that it could never happen, but it is unlikely. Your efforts might be better spent finding other keywords that you can compete successfully for.

The volume of searches being conducted on a keyword plays a big part in the keyword selection process and optimization strategy. A popular source for determining the number of times per month that a keyword is being queried is the Keyword Selector Tool from Yahoo! Search Marketing. Note: this tool reports on the searches done in a previous month for Yahoo!, MSN and other search engines in the Yahoo! SM marketing network - which means that you are seeing on average 48% of the searches done in North America. The ideal keywords are those that are highly relevant, have a high search count and low competition. What constitutes a high search count can vary greatly from industry to industry and from niche market to niche market.

Summary
Once your initial set of keywords is chosen - remember that SEO this is an ongoing process, you will need to constantly revisit, re-evaluate, and be on the lookout for new organic keywords. Be sure to monitor performance and review your website analytics to determine the success of your organic keywords.

Brenda Wright
Head Sponsored Search Strategist
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing

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