Keyword research measures the words your customers use to search Google. Keyword optimisation is essential for effective SEO

Keyword Research

Keyword research is an essential first step towards increasing visitor numbers to your website.

Keyword research looks at the words used by your potential customers when they search for products and services online. Understanding how people search makes sure you target the right search terms, so that you attract enough numbers of the right type of customer to increase your sales and your profits.

Glasgow Web Design are experts in keyword optimisation, and provide a keyword research service to clients throughout Scotland, the UK and Ireland. To discuss keyword research for your website please call us now on 0141 424 3408.

Keyword Optimisation

Keyword optimisation (or keyword optimization) is the art of selecting the best keywords to optimise your website for, taking into account the frequency with which people search for particular phrases. Choosing to optimise your website for the right phrases at the start will save you untold wasted time and effort, and will have a huge bearing on the capacity of your fully optimised website to attract enough visitors who are interested in your products or services.

Keyphrase Research

Choosing the right phrases for SEO must be done very carefully, since slightly different combinations of keywords can vary significantly in terms of search frequency. For example, people who enter the same keywords but in a different order may be searching for very different things, eg “alcohol free” and “free alcohol”. Synonyms such as “keyword research” and “keyphrase research” may have different search frequencies even though they mean the same thing. Regional spellings like “keyword optimisation” and “keyword optimization” may also differ. Keyword stemming and pluralisation also matters, so you could expect different frequencies for “web design”, “web designer” and “web designers”. Abbreviations are relevant, so different numbers of people will search for “B&B” and “bed and breakfast”. Localisation affects things too, so the number of people searching for “keyword research glasgow” will be very different to “keyword research scotland”. Proper keyword research takes into account all of these subtle variations in keywords.

Keyword Difficulty

A further consideration is the number and quality of websites competing for high rankings for particular phrases. Imagine you have a website for a used car dealership, and want to rank highly in Google for a very popular phrase like “used cars”. While this would certainly flood your website with visitors, you would need to invest significant time and effort getting then keeping your site on top of all the competition. You might be better off targeting a less frequently searched phrase such as “second hand cars”, or “preowned cars”; it would be easier to get and keep a high ranking, and you would probably still attract plenty of visitors.

Keyword Relevance

Let's say you have a car dealership that specialises in one or two makes of used car. Not all visitors who find your website under “used cars” will be interested in buying those types of car, so will leave your site. It may be more efficient to target phrases that are less frequently searched but are more relevant, such as “used fords”, “used ford mondeos” or even “used ford mondeos scotland”; although you will get less visitors, they will be more likely to buy from you. Google keyword research helps you balance keyword difficulty and keyword relevance, allowing you to choose the right phrases to target in order to maximise the return on your SEO investment.

Website Keywords

Finally, it is also important to recognise that keyword frequencies are fluid. Keyword frequencies differ depending on their source and how they are measured. Search frequencies can be seasonal. They can rise and fall depending on current popularity trends. And they can be very different across different geographical regions. Therefore it is important to regularly review good quality keyword frequency information to make sure your website targets the optimal keywords.

Keyword Analysis Research

Search engine optimisation is ineffective without properly researching the search terms that people actually use. Glasgow Web Design specialise in comprehensive keyword analysis research to make sure your business gets the most our of your SEO campaign. To discuss keyword research please call us now on 0141 424 3408.

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