The purpose of analysing keywords is to measure how many of your competitors use and rank for keywords versus the search volume and other metrics to gauge the time required to apply further research into strategies to get to the top for high usage relevant keywords. Can you afford to spend the time marketing and optimising for this keyword? Weighing and grouping your keywords will save time down the track.
Why not use software for results?
Using software to get a difficulty score means you will not understand the algorithm that weighs your words. When you create your spreadsheet, you can confirm that the metrics are relevant. You are also relying on the values they supply for the different parameters. While I prefer to use my weighing methods, I will double-check my data against a few of these applications for confidence.
You should gather your list of keywords in a spreadsheet with this post in mind.
What information do I need?
To be able to decide if a keyword is worth using we should get the following Metrics and information for all keywords;
Search Volume
How many times the keyword has been searched in a month.
CPC
Cost Per Click gives insight into the difficulty and value of a domain. A high CPC represents a high demand and/or a high number of businesses going for that keyword. A high CPC might indicate a Keyword in the Transaction Group.
Group
The group you have decided to create for this keyword. The most common way to group keywords is by search intent.
- Information – Intent is to learn. (What is)
- Navigation – Intent on their known destination. (Brand Name)
- Investigation – Researching for future purchases. (Best)
- Transaction – Intending to buy now. (Buy)
The keywords between the parenthesis above are modifiers. They are words used in searches that signify users’ intent. You will use modifiers in your spreadsheet to group keywords into groups.
Opportunity
Your chosen CTR opportunity from the search. Although the keyword metrics might look good, there might be features on the search result page such as video and images, and instant answers that are dominating click-throughs.
Page Requirements
Based on the opportunity above, page requirements are what the search results page is showing. Are the top two results video? You might need a video to rank for the keyword. Are the majority of the results recent? The page may require updates to stay relevant, a fresh bump.
Value
Your chosen business value for the keyword, What is this keyword worth to your business? A keyword from the Transaction Intent Group might be a valuable keyword guide as the user is searching with the intent to purchase. Words that have made you money in Google Adwords have a high value. If you know a particular keyword is valuable to your business, you will give this a high rating.
Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) is a prediction of how a page will rank on a search engine based on the metrics of all of the linked profiles on the domain, or the links to the domain.
Page Authority
Page Authority (PA) is a prediction of how a page will rank on a search engine based on the link profile metrics.
Spam Score
Can offer information on if the site looks spammy. It’s also valuable to run a spam score on backlinks you plan on using.
Search Result x URL
The URLs on the search result page one. Note the businesses and their marketing power. If you are competing against McDonald’s, you might find it expensive. It can be challenging to get results from competitive keywords, often this approach can be exhaustive and comes down to your budget vs all the competing businesses’ budgets.
Search Result x Backlinks
You can look at the URLs number and content of backlinks and where they rank to deduce which sites/information the user intended to get.
Difficulty
This is a calculation of the above metrics. The metrics calculate in a weighted stack.
Priority
Based on the data above each domain is finally given a priority from 1 to total keywords. Similar groups of the same goal and intent might get a 1A or 1B. Defining priority will help with the following step of making a list of priorities, and deciding on which group of keywords to use.
What to do next?
After sorting your list of keywords you can analyse the keywords metrics and decide on content needs for your use case. From your exhaustive list of keywords, you should be able to get them to a respectable number. Make a priority list of todo’s such as;
- Optimise home page for keyword x.
- Write an article on keyword y.
Start implementing your priority list. If you have a marketing campaign, you will be able to use this to-do list for your objectives and goals. Onwards and upwards!
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