What You Don't Know About Keywords That Your Competitors May Know

Did you know that 25% of searches each month are brand new, never before seen search words and phrases?

That is shocking. You would think with the number of search queries running through Google, they have seen it all.

We spend so much time on keyword research - and rightfully so, it's the foundation of your campaign. But this new information tells us that we need to tweak the process a little bit to keep up with the ever changing SEO world.

So, how do you handle keyword research and make sure you are staying current?

First and foremost you want to make sure you have outlined your strategy. Without a plan in place you are likely to forget to do it, and it'll just rattle around in the back of your brain or sit on a post-it note that gets stuck to the back of another piece of paper in your planner.

So, before that happens, let's define your plan right now.

1. Start with a brainstorming session to list all possible words and phrases that people would use to find what you have to offer. Remember to put yourself in the mindset of the potential customer.

2. Do the necessary research to continue building your list.

a. Research your competitors and see what keywords they are using.

b. Look at your web stats and logs and pull words and phrases from there (this is a great source of info, you can find the words that people are already using to find you and enhance your rankings on those words so you can get even more traffic).

c. If you have a search feature on your site, look at the logs and see what people are searching for within your site once they get there.

3. Take the large master list you have come up with, and use a keyword tool to determine how much traffic there is and how competitive the words/phrases are. Remember you can't live and die by this information; it only acts as a guide for you.

4. Take your list and break it into segments. You want some "low hanging fruit" - which means keywords that may be longer phrases, with less traffic. These words will be easy to rank for fairly quickly so you can use those as your starting point to drive some quick traffic to the site. The second segment of your list should be words that are more competitive and have more traffic and will take longer to get rankings for. You will be glad you selected keywords from each segment, because you will be getting traffic from the low hanging fruit while you are waiting for the more competitive phrases to kick in.

And now you write your content, optimize your site and you are all done, right?

Wrong! Here is where most people are missing out and you need to plan further action.

5. Once a month you should do keyword research and see what new words and phrases come up and add those new words and phrases to your campaign. If you find once a month is too often, do it every other month. Just make sure you have a plan to check back regularly so you can take advantage of new search phrases and tap into more traffic.

If you are adding content to your site like you should be, then adding these new keyword phrases should be easy to work into the new content you are writing.

Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing and co-owner of http://www.EcomBuffet.com. Since 1998, her expertise in online marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue and achieve their business goals. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on Search Engine Optimization and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer can be reached at Jennifer@ecombuffet.com