by Jennifer Laycock
If you’ve been reading about search engine marketing for more than, oh…about five minutes, you know you need to pick and target keywords and phrases as part of your campaign. You might even be familiar with some of the popular keyword tools and know about concepts like the keyword long tail. Heck, you might have already picked your phrases, optimized your site and moved along to other projects. No matter what point you’re at, you need to read Christine Churchill’s latest article over at Search Engine Land about selecting your keywords.
After all, it doesn’t matter how well you optimize your site or how skilled you are at driving quality links if you aren’t targeting the right keywords and phrases.
In her article, Christine explores eight key mistakes companies often make when selecting their keyword phrases.
1. Targeting keywords that people never use
2. Confusing keyword popularity with keyword appropriateness
3. Not considering user intent in keyword selection
4. Selecting single word keywords
5. Keyword misalignment
6. Not considering the competition
7. Failing to periodically review keywords
8. Not allocating enough resources and time to perform good keyword research
Christine’s in-depth look at each of these mistakes feature some good, common-sense advice like:
The phrase a user enters reveals much about the state of mind of the user and where they are in the buying process. For example, a search for “car reviews” might indicate that the searcher is in the research phase and is comparison-shopping. In contrast, a searcher entering “fast auto financing” is actively looking to buy–he wants that hot car in time for the weekend.
But it also features the type of keyword research tips that even some SEOs tend to overlook when making their choices.
One needs to be careful when selecting keywords to make sure that you select phrases that do not unintentionally conflict with unrelated industries. For example: consider the phrase “mobile marketing”. A company selling advertising on mobile billboards might unintentionally be competing with a company selling advertising on mobile devices. Careful keyword selection can help prevent this misalignment.
Overall, it’s a good read and a good reminder that keyword research is never over. As I wrote last month in my article about creating new content, it’s essential to do keyword research every few months to make sure your campaigns are up to date. If you’re due for a new round of keyword research, make sure you start your planning by reading Christine’s article.
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At Search Engine Strategies in March, Tim Ash walked up to me after my speech and handed me his book. I (ashamed to say) did not know Tim and had not heard of his book before then. I leafed through it quickly and told myself, “This looks good,” and promptly dumped it in my pile of books that take forever to get read. I told myself I’d eventually read it, but it took me quite a while to do so. That was a big mistake.
I mentioned another way to create printer friendly pages, and that is by creating a style sheet just for printing. This method requires no additional pages to be maintained, or any “print” links, as the users will be able to print in a clean, printer-friendly format using the browser’s print button.