SEO Keyword Research and Anlaysis | SEO Analysis

SEO keyword research and analysis

Here is a summary of the keyword research process, with some information on Doublespark's approach.

Keyword research is perhaps the most important ingredient in any search engine optimisation strategy. Choosing the right words will dramatically improve your chance of success.

How to choose keywords

Choosing keywords will start with a relatively simple analysis of your organisation's core products/services. This will produce an initial set of (usually) two, three and four-word phrases that might be used in the subsequent SEO activity.

Doublespark's approach is often then to do a similar process on some of your main competitors' sites (see our competitor research page for details).

We will identify and research phrases that potential clients are likely to type into search engines which do not currently feature highly on your site or your competitors' sites. To help us identify these phrases we might look at materials related to your sector, such as trade press and directories.

Then we will start to use the sophisticated keyword research software that we invest in. This software lets us find out what words and phrases related to your products or services are being used by search engine users. It also shows us how many searches were made in a given time period for each phrase, and how many pages from across the internet were found as a result of the search.

All of the above leads to a choice about which keywords and phrases to use, with two polarised options:

1. You could choose words and phrases that are very commonly used by search engine users.

On the face of it this sounds like the obvious choice. But if you choose only the most common words you will probably be competing against a large number of competitor sites that also use these phrases - and these sites might have a head start on you in terms of optimisation.

2. Or you could alternatively choose words and phrases that are used less often by search engine users.

This could be effective as fewer competitor sites will be using these phrases, so you would stand a better chance of ranking highly in search results.

Using the keywords

Once the key words that are most likely to improve your search ranking performance have been identified, you then need to put them to good work on your site. This would usually involve some editing of the text content, headings and link names. This is step three in the process explained on our SEO explained page and there are three other steps in the process.

Find out more...

This article has only scratched the surface of keyword research. The process we use is complex and time consuming, but it plays a big part in the great results we have consistently achieved for our clients. Please contact us to discuss what we could do for you, or get some additional useful information through these links:

Full list of SEO resources within the knowledge centre:

1. SEO explained
2. Social Media
3. SEO keyword research and analysis
4. Competitor research and analysis
5. Reporting and analysis
6. SEO Scorecard