In Part 1, we explained what keyword research is, how it works, what data should be collected and considered, and why it's so important as a foundation for your SEO strategy and campaign. In Part 2, we examine 6 common mistakes people make when conducting keyword research, which could make the difference between the data being correct or potentially inaccurate and even worthless...

I've spearheaded the majority of Liberty's keyword research in the past 1-2 years and have come across a variety of keyword research mistakes made by businesses, in-house marketers and even other SEO agencies.

Here are the most common, so that you know to avoid them:

1. Choosing keywords based on search volume alone: Some people consider effective keyword research to consist of only collecting search volume data for keywords, and choosing keywords based on that information alone. However, as explained in Part 1, obtaining competition and ranking data as well can give a much clearer picture of where there might be opportunities.

2. Recording broad match data: The default match type in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is broad match. Make sure that you change this to [exact] match, in order to obtain more precise data on individual keywords. Check out our guide on PPC match types for more info. I've seen a keyword with 5,000 monthly searches on broad match that only receives 50 on [exact], so you don't want to be assuming that a keyword will bring you up to 5,000 visitors when it might actually be 1% of that!

3. Not considering keywords that customers would use: I remember hearing a story about a company that wanted to rank #1 for a particular keyword, but didn't realise that it was purely an industry team, and that their customers called this particular product by a completely different name. Therefore, they might've ended up ranking for a keyword that might not have necessarily brought any new customers to their door. One example might be "sweatshirts," which might also be called "sweaters" or "jumpers." You may want to opt for the phrase that your customers use, even if it's not necessarily what you yourself would call it.

4. Only focussing on head terms: I wrote a blog post called 'There's More To Life Than "Shoes",' and at that time, I discovered that although "shoes" had 50,000 searches per month in Google, it still only made up for less than 2% of the entire search market for that industry! Don't just concentrate on head terms - they are harder to rank for, they may not convert as well (as they're much broader) and ultimately you could miss out on a lot of other areas, which may have less search volume but may also be easier and more profitable to you.

5. Missing out long-tail opportunities: Did you know that the Google AdWords Keyword Tool has a word limit, depending on the length or the words you enter? Make sure that you haven't missed out wordier variations of keywords, such as keywords consisting of 6 or more words. After all, if you spot them - and your competitors haven't - then they could consist of some worthwhile opportunities.

6. Missing singular/plural and hyphenated words: The Google AdWords Keyword Tool can also be quite finite, depending on what you put into it. If you were to put in "keyrings" and tick the box that says 'Only show ideas closely related to my search terms,' you will only get keyword suggestions that have the word "keyrings" in them. In order to get singular variations, you would have to put in "keyring" separately as well. It also wouldn't show "key ring" or "key rings" (i.e. with a space), so you would have to manually include those variations, too. It may be long-winded, but then it could make the difference between seeing all the potential keywords out there or only a handful of them.

Liberty provides comprehensive keyword research services, whether it's to help kick-off an SEO campaign or as a one-off service to those who want to double-check that the keywords they're going for are the right ones for them and their business. For a no-obligation chat with an ethical online marketing agency, please call +44 (0)29 2076 6467 today.

Just like every good house has strong foundations, and every good marketing campaign is preceded by a well thought-out plan or strategy, in-depth keyword research should be carried out in order to give an SEO campaign the best possible chance to succeed.

Even so, some businesses and marketers either research their keywords quickly and haphazardly - not giving the process the attention it deserves - or don't even bother doing it at all and simply select keywords based on guesswork and assumption. It may be because they are simply so eager to get started on their SEO, but it’s worth taking the time to conduct proper keyword research before any actual work is started or carried out. You never know, it could make the difference between absolute success or complete failure in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

So what is keyword research?

Keyword research is simply the case of establishing which keywords you should be targeting as part of your SEO campaign. Wikipedia's definition sums it up pretty well, too.

Ideally, keyword research should be carried out right at the start of an SEO campaign, as its results may dictate which keywords you use, and therefore how you word the content on your website (in terms of SEO copywriting) and the types of links you try to get (in terms of link building). It should also be reviewed on an on-going basis, just in case keywords become obsolete or less important going forward.

What's important to consider in keyword research?

There are a number of factors to consider when conducting keyword research for SEO:

• Search volume: Obviously, one of the most important factors is the number of people who actually search using a particular keyword. The last thing you want to do is assume a keyword gets lots of search volume, only to find that no one actually uses it!
  
  Fortunately, Google provides search volume data, via the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, which is free to use. Although it's designed for AdWords/PPC users, its data is general and can therefore be used for SEO purposes, too.

• Competition: Marketers should also consider the level of competition for each keyword. Logic dictates that a keyword with high search volume should be more competitive (e.g. it may be more difficult to rank #1 for "shoes" compared to something like "ladies black and white shoes"), and although this is often the case, it's worth looking into, as you may find a golden, uncompetitive opportunity that’s there for the taking.
  
  But how can someone judge competition more accurately? The main way is to consider the number of competing pages. When you search for the keyword, how many pages does Google say it's found (when it says "About x results," below the search bar)? Is it in the millions, thousands or dozens? Another way is to use SEOmoz's Keyword Difficulty Score tool, which gives a rough indication - based on its own metrics - on how competitive a SERP might be. However, this particular tool is only available to PRO members of SEOmoz.

• Current rankings: It's surprising how much this one tends to get overlooked. If you're already on page 2 for a particular keyword, it might be easier to optimise it further - and get it onto page 1, where it's more likely going to get spotted and clicked - than to spend time concentrating on a keyword where you're currently on page 10, for example.

It's time to choose some keywords - now what?

Once you've gotten your list of keywords along with their search volume, competition and ranking data, it's not simply a case of choosing based on the best numbers alone...

You should also consider the following:

• Trends: Is a keyword likely to see a major increase or decrease of searches in the future, based on what's happened in the past? This is important to consider, especially as the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is based on past data. A good example would be keywords including "2012," e.g. "best careers 2012" - this keyword will probably get a lot of search volume in 2012, but come January 2013, is it likely to continue performing so well? A good tool to use to judge trends in Google is the Google Insights for Search tool, which is free to use.

• Demographics: It's also important to consider demographics. Who are your customers? Who do you want as a visitor for your website? Do older searchers (the elderly) use different types of keywords compared to younger searchers (young adults), for example? This could be important if your site or business in general is targeting a particular demographic - you'll want your keyword choices to reflect that demographic, wherever possible and if it's possible to ascertain such information.

• Conversions: Do some of your products or services convert better than others? If you know of some areas of your business that convert well, does it make sense to concentrate on those areas more than others with your keyword choices and overall SEO campaign?

• Profitability: Similarly, are some products and services more profitable to you? Should you be concentrating on areas that would be worth the most money to you?

• Long term plans: Keywords can take a while to rank and can be difficult to change mid-campaign. Will you still be providing a particular product or service in 6-12 months' time? For less permanent and more short-term online marketing efforts, you might want to consider PPC as well or instead. I recently wrote a guide explaining the differences between SEO and PPC for small businesses, which covers this aspect in more detail.

Ideally, a mix of keywords should be selected. You do not want to put all of your eggs in one basket and rely on just a handful of keywords. Consider a mix of short-, mid- and long-term keywords (perhaps a mix of easy/uncompetitive keywords as well as difficult/competitive keywords) as well as content-related keywords for possible content creation purposes.

What's so important about keyword research?

As mentioned above, keyword research is important as it acts as the foundation for your overall SEO efforts. The keywords chosen are likely to dictate all onsite and offsite work, including copywriting, content strategy and on-going link building.

The last thing you want to do is realise 3-6 months down the line that you've been concentrating on the wrong keywords. You may find that your previous efforts have been a waste of time, and rectifying them may absorb additional time as well as money.

So as eager as you might be to get started on SEO, spending a few hours on keyword research might help you to avoid wasting hours, days or even weeks of time in the future. You might also find a keyword that the rest of your competitors have missed, which could be very valuable in terms of generating new business.

In Part 2, we'll cover the 6 most common mistakes people make when conducting keyword research. Keep an eye out for it next week!

EDIT: Part 2 is now live and can be found here!

Your online marketing agency have performed miracles - your website has shot up to rank as number one for all your chosen keywords. So now what? Is that the end of your SEO project?

The short answer is no. It is never over. The role of your agency will change slightly now that you have reached your desired position, shifting from an aggressive ‘rankings conquering’ approach to a more defensive, consolidating strategy which maintains your position on the top spot.

Once you’ve reached your target rank, you’ll need to keep yourself there and the only sure-fire way to do this is to stay on the ball with your SEO. If you allow your SEO project to stagnate, you risk Google seeing your website as stale and irrelevant, this gives competitors the opportunity to climb up and snatch the coveted position you’ve attained through many months of hard graft.

And it isn’t just the competition that you need to worry about. Search engines are continuously updating their algorithms which calculate your rank. Nothing stays still on the internet for long, so an on-going defensive SEO strategy is essential if you want to maintain your prime position.

So once you have reached your goal rank, what’s to be done?

SEO Maintenance

First of all, your online marketing agency should now put in place an effective SEO maintenance strategy. This will include continuous link building which ensures that your website still looks relevant and up-to-date to the search engines. It will also ensure that your SEO project does not become lax and allow more aggressive competitors to outdo you.

SEO Expansion

Once you’re comfortably in your target position, you can start thinking about expanding your strategy. You might have conquered your chosen keywords but there are thousands of others out there to chase and each one could bring you a plethora of new visitors.

There are a couple of directions that your chosen online marketing agency could take your SEO expansion. You could set off on a whole new link building strategy with new sales pages for each new keyword, or you could take a more relaxed approach by setting up a regular blog which targets all the long tail keywords that could bring traffic to your site. The route you choose to go is entirely up to you, your budget, your market and your aspirations.

The most important thing to remember is that SEO is not a one-off cost. It is a continuous process which must be factored into the on-going cost of marketing your business. Failing to maintain your SEO means that all the hard work of your online marketing agency - and all the money you spent on ranking highly - will very quickly get washed away.

If you want to stay relevant and maximise your audience, Liberty Marketing can help. As Wales’ largest online marketing agency, we have experience helping clients reach, maintain and maximise their target ranking in a transparent, ethical and effective way. Get in touch today to find out more on 029 2076 6467.

As a website owner, if you are only using natural search or Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to generate traffic to your website then you could be missing out on a significant number of visitors. The majority of search engine marketers are of the opinion that a search engine marketing campaign budget should be split between PPC advertising and a more prolonged SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy. The importance of both can be illustrated by the fact that - even with a #1 search engine ranking - up to 25% of the traffic that lands on the results page for your key terms will click on the PPC listings. On the other hand, there are plenty of online consumers who completely disregard the PPC listings, so without a natural placing on the rankings, a website only involved in PPC advertising will miss out on a vast proportion of the total market.

Of course, as always, there are exceptions to the rule. In market sectors that experience particularly high levels of competition, it may be that the CPC (cost per click) is so high that smaller operators simply cannot compete. In this case, it may be more worthwhile to spread the cost over a far longer time span by opting for an SEO strategy, which will help your site to show in the organic results over time.

In many cases, website owners will invest in a PPC advertising campaign to create a revenue stream whilst they wait for their SEO campaign to drive the site up through the rankings. The amount of time an SEO campaign will take depends on a wide number of factors, although obviously the available budget and competition already in the market will heavily influence the time span.

Before spending too much money on a PPC advertising campaign, it is important to ensure that you understand the process intimately, or hire a team of professionals who can do this for you. Without very carefully tracking PPC advertising campaigns, if you are operating in a high CPC market or competing for a high volume search phrase then you could have spent thousands before you know it - so take care!

A great SEO link building service can do wonders for your website's rankings. The more incoming links which direct visitors - and search engine crawlers - to your website, the more relevant and useful your page will appear to search engines like Google and Bing. But what does a link building service do? Find out all about the different kinds of links a good link building service will set up and how they work.

Social Media Links
As any link builder worth their salt will tell you, social media links are becoming more and more important. Recent changes to how search engines rank pages have meant that Google is taking far more notice of the social media links, which an SEO link building service can put in place for you. This is because social media sites are among the most used resources online, with one study suggested that social media accounts for more than 22% of all Internet use. This is why factors like Facebook 'Likes' are beginning to have a real effect of rankings.

A link building service will be able to use this to their advantage. On sites like Facebook and Twitter, an online link building service can go in and direct traffic to your site by using links placed in profiles, groups and posts.

Social bookmarking is also becoming an important tool for any top link builder. Resources like del.icio.us, Diigo and HeyStaks enable users to bookmark and then share their collection of links to their favourite sites. When a link builder sets up links to your site using social bookmarking tools, search engines then index them.

Directories & Links
Directories are essentially online collections of links, organised into categories and sub-categories. They were primarily designed to allow browsers to find new information and websites but many an SEO link builder will submit their websites and links to directories like Yell.com, Qype and Hotfrog, to get your site indexed quickly by search engines. A good SEO link building service will know which directories search engines check most regularly, allowing your site to get indexed - fast!

Blog Links
There are two different forms of blogging which your link builders should use. On-site blogging not only boosts your reputation as an up-to-date industry leader and allows you to target hundreds of long-tail keywords, but it also allows you to create links to your own site. Search engines take less notice of internal links of this kind, but it does help search engine crawlers to navigate and index your site.

Off-site blogging will do far more favours for your rankings, which is why an SEO agency will often put more energy into this side of blogging. Blogging platforms like Tumblr, blogspot.com, WordPress and Posterous can be used to create links, either by embedding them in a brand new post, or by putting links in blog comments on other people's posts. Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo can also be used by a link builder in very much the same way.

Guest blogging is something that is important to any good SEO agency. It is related to both blogging and to reciprocal links which we will discuss later. Essentially, your link builder will approach an established blog and ask if they can post their own blog, which will include a link, on the blog, this will allow some really high quality traffic to be directed to your site and impress search engines. This takes a little more effort though, as your link builder will need to convince the owners of the original blog that the post they will be adding is going to be useful and relevant to readers. Anything else will seem spammy.

Ezine Article Links
Ezine article links are used by SEO agencies to surround their link with relevant content which tells the search engines that your website is about what it claims to be about. This increases its perceived relevance, doing wonders for its rankings!

Forum Links
In terms of what your link builders will do, forums work in a similar way to blogs. The SEO agency will include you link in their profile, their signature and in the post they actually make. Forums can be tricky for an SEO specialist because they often have restrictions which try to prevent the link builder from using the forum for link building purposes.

The best way to build links in forums is to use an exceptional team of SEO link builders that knows how to use forums to make genuine, highly relevant comments which also include your link which will actually be helpful to readers.

Reciprocal Links
Your link builder will also 'broker deals' which allow you to swap links with other, relevant websites that get a lot of traffic. Essentially if you provide a link to a different website on your page, that website will then provide a link back to your site in a mutually helpful agreement.

There are a few ways that a link builder can go about securing these reciprocal links: they can approach a related site themselves, they can send link request emails or they can wait to be contacted by another SEO agency, in charge of a different website.

Where Can you Find the Best SEO Link Building Service?
Well of course we're biased, but here at Liberty, our in-house link building service really is fantastic. Nicola, Andrew, Mona, Rachel, Adam, Sridhar, Ceri and Steve are our talented team of SEO account managers, social media marketers, search engine marketers and dedicated link builders; they know their way around SEO like nobody’s business. Their combined talents and expertise allow Liberty to offer an exceptionally effective link building service which will get your website to where it needs to go!

In SEO, the goal for a number of businesses seems to be to rank for their industry's main keyword. It may be an absolute dream for a small shoe shop to optimise its website for the keyword "shoes" for example, but the reality is that it may be nearly impossible when the competition is made up of big-name brands such as Office, Barratts and Schuh, whose budgets and resources will be far greater in comparison.

This may seem obvious, yet we occasionally meet businesses who think this type of goal is realistically achievable and the best course of action. Beyond that, there are some marketers working for big-name brands who care so much about the 'head' term that they risk neglecting other keyword areas and search terms, which could have a potentially damaging effect on their overall SEO efforts.

The head term vs. the long tail

To highlight the difference between the head term and the 'long tail' (the rest of the searches related to head term), we used the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to work out the difference in search volume as a percentage.

According to the Keyword Tool, [shoes] on exact match (i.e. Google users typing in the exact phrase "shoes" into Google with nothing before or after it) is searched for 165,000 times per month in the UK. This statistic alone sounds amazing - imagine being on page 1 of Google for that keyword and receiving a share of the visitors! But how many people use Google for any keyword containing or relating to "shoes?" The answer: 9,140,000 UK searches per month!

This is the broad match figure: according to Google's definition, broad match includes "synonyms, singular/plural forms, relevant variants of your keywords and phrases containing your keywords."

To give you an idea, this will include other high-volume keywords...

- "wedding shoes" (49,500 UK searches per month)
- "shoes online" (27,100)
- "cheap shoes" (18,100)

...All the way down to the really specific searches:

- "discount womens shoes" (58 UK searches per month)
- "buy ladies shoes online" (22)
- "uk online shoe store" (12)

If you compare the keyword [shoes] on exact match to its broad match version (e.g. the Long Tail), [shoes] occupies only 1.8% of the entire share of searches in the market:

Therefore, someone chasing [shoes] and nothing else risks missing out on 98% of the market searching for shoes using Google.

The risks of chasing the head

We recently heard of an example of an independent shoe shop that only sells ballerina pumps, whose website coincidentally ranked well organically for "shoes" searches relating to their location (e.g. "shoes london"). Although this sounds great on the surface and would have been great for general exposure, it was actually quite useless to them. Using them as an example, they probably found the head term for their industry & city to be:

- Not specific enough: If someone is searching for shoes, are they looking for tennis shoes, running shoes, kids shoes, ladies shoes, boots, trainers, sandals...? Unless they happen to be looking for ballerina pumps, the site appearing for their search would have been worthless to them, unless they sold all types of shoes imaginable.

- Harder to convert: For the above reason, it is much harder converting this type of traffic into customers, especially if it is not what they are really looking for. Likewise, it would be a surprise if they were unable to convert people searching for "ballerina pumps in london," for example - the type of product they sell twinned with their location.

- More expensive: In this instance, if the ballerina shoe shop were to use Google AdWords and target national traffic, the approximate CPC (cost per click) for "shoes" is £0.65, according to their Keyword Tool. However, "ballerina shoes" and "ballerina pumps" are £0.47 and £0.36, respectively. The latter two search terms may get fewer people searching for them - due to their specificity - but they are cheaper, more specific and therefore easier to convert for this particular shop/website. They could effectively be spending less money in advertising but earning more back in the sales they receive from this type of traffic.

Grabbing the tail

As the long tail is generally a less competitive sector of the market compared to the head term, it is usually a lot easier to target and chase this type of traffic.

So instead of going all out and aiming for "shoes," time can be spent building links and writing content that targets the long tail searches, examples of content including advice articles, news stories, top tips and how-to guides. Go for enough of them and combined they might actually thwart the head term in terms of volume. Not only that but they will likely draw in a better quality of traffic to the website, who will be more likely to buy the products or services on offer to them.

The New York Times has recently investigated the “black hat” SEO techniques employed by large US department store, JC Penney. In an article entitled "The Dirty Little Secrets of Search," the newspaper brought in an SEO consultant to find out how JC Penney had all of a sudden leapfrogged almost all other online retailers for some very competitive, very juicy terms.

You can read the full article here but the summary is along the lines of:

• The Times and their SEO consultant spot a tonne of link building, including a lot of paid-for links.
• The Times sent Google the evidence it had collected and the leader of their Web Spam team, Matt Cutts, responded by saying "I can confirm that this violates our guidelines” and that Google would take “corrective action”.
• Google did as they promised and started placing rankings penalties on the retailers’ website which promptly saw it fall down the search rankings for numerous search terms. For “living room furniture” it went from 1st position to 68th within a matter of hours and for “Samsonite carry on luggage” it fell from 1st to 71st.
• JC Penney claims no knowledge of these practices and fires its search engine marketing firm.

This isn’t the first example of a very large brand being slapped by Google. BMW and Go Compare have both previously been penalised for over-eager SEO tactics that fell foul of Google’s guidelines. If you have bought links or are thinking of doing so then consider the fact that if the search engine is willing to upset brands of this size, then they won’t have an issue doing the same to your site.

We often take on new SEO clients who have been penalised by Google for just such practices. Unfortunately, overcoming a penalty can take considerable work and a long time. Whilst it does take longer to rank at the top with more ethical SEO campaigns, the long-term positions and peace of mind are worth the wait.

In late 2009, a well known and established promotional products supplier wanted to launch a new website, targeting a different type of buyer.

Why was Liberty brought in?

Keyword research was needed and so was an analysis of competition. The company recognised that this wasn’t a strength of theirs so asked us to advise on target keywords. MyBrandedMerchandise.co.uk was born and in early 2010 the SEO strategy started.

The goal of the website was always to take a large share of the search engine traffic. Thousands of searches take place for the chosen keywords each week and it is vital that MyBrandedMerchandise becomes one of the most visited suppliers.

After writing keyword rich content for the main pages of the site, we started to build links from other websites, in order to convince Google that the website is worth showing high in the results.

Within weeks, the promotional products website was appearing in the first few pages of Google for some of its keywords and within six months it was on page one for almost all of them.

What has working with Liberty meant?

1. A website that did not exist only a few months ago now receives thousands of visitors a month.

2. The business has been able to pause its Google AdWords campaign, yet traffic figures keep growing.

3. New enquiries are flowing in and the business is busier than it has ever been.

4. New sales take place each week.

One of the most common questions we are asked by our clients is “What kind of clicks can I expect when I am in position 1?” Another is “How many more clicks will I get at the top of the page, compared to the bottom?” Valid questions when choosing to employ an SEO firm and ones we’ve struggled to answer, until now.

We’ve spent some time this month and put our heads together to conduct a little research that we hope goes someway to answering these questions. As you surely know, page 1 on Google is the much revered promised land of Search Engine Optimisation, but did you know that by battling your way to the first position, your site could enjoy three times the traffic that a competitor in 3rd place receives?

We compared Click Through Rates for a dozen of our retained SEO clients by looking at their Google Adwords data, their Google Analytics data and our ranking tracking software. We compared traffic levels against where they were in the search results month on month for each keyword and the results averaged out as:

As you can see, there are drastic differences between the click through rates you can expect if your site shows at top of the Google rankings on page 1, or if you are somewhere in mid-table or towards the bottom of the page. Our research shows that if your organisation finds itself as rank 1, you can expect just over 51% of all people searching on that term to visit your website. This then falls quite dramatically...

Position 1 = 51.4%
Position 2 = 27.4%
Position 3 = 16.8%
Position 4 = 12.7%
Position 5 = 10.8%
Position 6 = 8.3%
Position 7 = 6.6%
Position 8 = 6.2%
Position 9 = 5.3%
Position 10 = 4.8%

Interestingly, the difference between the listings ‘below the fold’ (i.e. the lower half of the page that you often have to scroll down to) is quite small. Perhaps people click the first listing impulsively but when they get down to the second half of the page, take the time to read through the lower listings?

If you are carrying out SEO work or want to appear at the top of the search engines then hopefully this gives you an idea of what to expect. Compare these figures with the search volumes found on the Google keyword suggestion tool and you will have an idea of the visitor levels your site will receive.

Please bear in mind that whilst we ran this for a dozen sites, that’s still quite a small number and if we had the time or resources then we would have done more. Also, the figures varied quite widely depending on the market and the type of keywords involved.

Your CTR will obviously depend on how compelling your listing is in the search results, so spend time to ensure keywords are included within your page titles, meta descriptions and the URL (if possible), as these are the three things that users see in the search results. Also try and include words that will enhance CTR, such as “free trial”, “low cost”, “high quality” or whatever works for your target market.