As the years roll by and I keep honing my SEO Consulting skills, my Keyword Analysis process and documentation has gone through several transformations.
The deliverable Keyword Analysis document is on an Excel spreadsheet with several tabs. The main contents of my keyword analysis are:
1) Keyword Volume/Discovery.
2) Keyword Ranking.
3) Keyword Demand.
4) Web Analytics.
5) Keyword Difficulty.
6) Next Steps.
Keyword Search Volume and Discovery:
I use Wordtracker and cross reference with other tools like KeywordDiscovery and the Google Keyword Tool. A separate tab is created for each keyword group. International SEO demands that the foreign language Google is checked. Eg: Google.no, google.de, google.co.uk. Once all the possible keyword combinations are generated, I look for the most relevant terms that are further down the Conversion Funnel for a better return on investment (ROI). Those are the terms that I use for the next step.
Keyword Ranking:
I take the identified terms from the Keyword Search Volume Discovery tab, and plug them into Web Position. Sometimes, I double check the keyword rankings manually against Web Position. This tab is used as the Baseline Keyword Ranking.
Keyword Demand:
Next, I plug those terms from the Keyword Ranking report into a Keyword Demand Matrix. This tab contains 5 Columns: Keyword Phrase, Monthly KW Demand, Actual search referrals, Share of Search traffic, Missed opportunities.
Web Analytics:
In this tab, copy and paste the Analytics report. Basic information I like to see is Visitors, by Keywords, by Search Engine, for the last 3 months. Each month can be it’s own tab. Of course if they have conversion data, that is included. Occasionally, we need to correctly configure the Analytics software.
Keyword Difficulty & Competitiveness
At this point, I’ve usually narrowed down the keyword(s) I want to optimize for the Target URL to a couple of terms. A few factors I measure are: Domain Link Portfolio, Age of Domain, .edu .gov links, Alexa Rank, PageRank, and the Internal link percent of the Target URL.
Next Steps:
In this tab, you want to call out 3 things: Campaign Objectives, Target Keywords and their Success Metrics and the rationale behind it. The actual next steps are a Technical SEO Analysis & Recommendation document to Optimize the entire site.
My objective is to optimize the entire site for an increase in overall visitor traffic, with an additional success metric for a few specific keywords mapped to their corresponding Target URL’s.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks a lot for your excellent post…and the details you provide.. very informative!
This article is money – so informative for those looking to do their own keyword analysis — awesome detail.
Great post! Especially for newbies like me. I’m curious if you’d be willing to share a sample keyword spreadsheet?
Shimon,
You never say what the “Keyword Demand Matrix” is? Can you be a little more detailed about what these are
* Actual search referrals
* Share of Search traffic
* Missed opportunities.
Thanks,
Breakline Marketing
@Breakline:
1) Actual Search referrals is the actual # of visits from that keyword from Search Engines.
2) Share of Traffic is the Actual search referrals over the Monthly KW Demand (Total amount of monthly searches for a keyword) expressed as a percentage.
3)Missed opportunities is the Monthly KW Demand minus Actual search referrals.
Shimonay!
Isn’t there police song called that?
For actual search referrals I’m assuming you pull that from the clients website analytics correct? If so what have you done in the past when your client doesn’t have a web anal package in place?
Most of the people I’m dealing with don’t know what Google analytics etc is.
Thanks,
BM
bm, i think you are thinking of “Roxanne”, you I could see how Shimon and that song mesh…
I totally understand your rationale Shimon, for choosing SEO targets. At my company we only do PPC, and I’d be inerested to talk with you, thanks.
How/Where do you get the statistical data for the Keyword Demand Matrix?