Tutorial 3. How to build an effective keyword strategy

Transcription

1 Tutorial 3. How to build an effective keyword strategy Welcome to the third of our seven day series on getting the most out of your first week with Wordtracker. We re going to show you how to take your analyzed keywords and build an effective keyword strategy. To succeed you need to organize your site into a hierarchy with a home page, and the keywords the home page will target. The home page links to the Category page, which also have their keywords to target, and in turn link to content pages like articles and videos which of course also each target their own keywords. Profit from keywords video series transcript 1

2 You can see this site structure on a real site for serious sports people. Here s the home page. Here we see the links to the site s Category pages, organized into three groups because this is a large site. Profit from keywords video series transcript 2

3 On one of the sub-pages here we see the same categories listed as a menu. If we click on a Category page, like this Sprinting category: Profit from keywords video series transcript 3

4 then we find links to content pages, including videos and articles like this video page. Your keyword research should be organized in the same structure as your site, with a project for the site and a list for each Category. You now have the simple job of mapping the saved keywords to your site. Profit from keywords video series transcript 4

5 In this example, the most important keyword in the project name sports training is mapped to the site s home page on which it is used in key postions. Then each list s most important keywords are mapped to the site s matching Category page. For example for the sprinting list this is sprint training and sprinting workouts. Profit from keywords video series transcript 5

6 Here we see them on the site s Sprinting category page. Remaining keywords in lists are mapped to relevant pages of content, like articles and videos. The process of building a keyword strategy is that of choosing which keywords to prioritize on your home page, Category page, and then on your content pages. Now, let s look at a hypothetical example of how to do this. Say there s an osteopath who wants to set up a website on back pain and related conditions. He uses the Keywords tool and his own industry knowledge to build up a list of the following seed keywords: Profit from keywords video series transcript 6

7 Each of these keywords is a possible niche that could serve as a category on the site, with a category home page that links to content pages for articles and videos based on specific keywords within the niche. As an example for neck pain the hierarchy would be set up like this. But what keywords should our osteopath prioritize? What should the keyword strategy be? Let s go the Wordtracker Keywords tool to find out. Profit from keywords video series transcript 7

8 We ll set up a new project called Osteopath s Website. Now, let s check out the seed list. Profit from keywords video series transcript 8

9 Here in Wordtracker s blue Find Keywords tool we want the phrase match option, so that only matches that contain our exact keyword inside a search term are shown. Aso include plurals. Next, we save these results as a new list called seed list in our osteopath s website project. Profit from keywords video series transcript 9

10 Creating this project and saving the seed list are important, as you should regularly return to your seed list and chosen priority keywords to continuously improve your website s performance. Now our osteopath chooses which keywords to investigate further using the Search & Save function. This creates a new list which can be added to the osteopath s website project, and just repeat the project for all keywords of interest. Without leaving the one page you can track your progress by clicking on show all lists. Profit from keywords video series transcript 10

11 Let s speed up the process a bit, shall we? Now because you saved your seed list you can return at any time to look for more interesting niches. Now, let s review our saved lists by visiting the website s project page. Your project page is like a map of your website, and it is the home of your website s keyword research and content planning. Each of these lists is a possible Category on our osteopath s new website, giving this site a structure of one homepage and nine Category pages. Profit from keywords video series transcript 11

12 See how the structure of the site is the same as the way we ve organized the osteopath s website project in the keywords tool? To make it easier to illustrate, I ll show just four categories in our diagram. On the site each category has its own page that lists links to content pages with relevant articles and videos. Let s look again at the Neck Pain category in more detail. The Neck pain category page will list links to articles and videos about neck pain. This diagram shows the Neck pain category and articles on the content pages, within the site structure. Profit from keywords video series transcript 12

13 And the Keywords tool can help you make sure that those articles and videos are about subjects that your target visitors are interested in and searching for. Here s how. Remember that your website s project page is like your website s home page and the lists are like your site s categories. Click on the list name and it s like clicking on the Category home page on your website. Let s check out neck pain. Keep in mind that each of the keywords listed here has been used by real people making real searches on search engines. But think of them as more than keywords. Each is the subject of a potential article, blog post or video that you can create on your site, and optimize it so that it gets found by those searchers. Here our osteopath s neck pain list contains hundreds of different keywords, each a potential page about neck pain. But that s too many pages to make at once so we have to prioritize. The Keywords tool can show the level of competition to help with this, which the osteopath can then augment with his own industry knowledge in making the final choice. We just click count Google results... Profit from keywords video series transcript 13

14 ... and here s our keyword list. As you can see we ve got the number of competing pages. In choosing his keywords, our osteopath has to keep in mind the following: First, it s hard for new sites to compete against established ones, so look for keywords that offer higher popularity but little competition. Profit from keywords video series transcript 14

15 Second, once you re established, then you ll have a good chance of ranking for some of the more popular keywords, so try to target those with little regard for the competition. You can of course target a mix, focusing on both the popular keywords and the not so popular for which there are less. Now choose just five or ten keywords for the focus of some new pages and save them to a new neck pain list called neck pain pages. How many pages you make at once depends on the resources you have available. The neck pain pages list can now be thought of as a list of pages to create on the site, as well as a list on the site s neck pain Category page. Profit from keywords video series transcript 15

16 And our osteopath can now regularly return to the neck pain list to mine new keywords from which new, trafficproducing pages can be created. Bear in mind that this is only the basis of an initial strategy. It s up to you to build upon it. So, monitor your traffic and sales of the individual niches in keywords produced. Look for signs of success and build upon them. If a keyword is doing particularly well, adding more content and link building will enhance that success and bring more traffic to the niche in general. Profit from keywords video series transcript 16