Keyword Search

SEO always start with Keyword Research. So, how to find the right keyword for your website from a bunch of list that presented to you. People tend to search for a specific term, rather than a general or generic term. Sometimes they use their own phrases - some obvious and some obscure - to search the term they're looking for.

Ok. Let's start picking up the right keyword for "dog training" keyword. Should we use "dog training"? We'll be analyzing the keywords. So, what is the quick and easy way to choose the right keyword?

Let's look at the below result chart that I gathered from some of the tools that I used. Let me explain for the term at the above.

KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) is found by Sumantra Roy, a respected Search Engine Positioning specialist from 1st Search Ranking. KEI compares the searches result with the number of competing web pages and from this point we can spot which keywords are the most effective for your website.

The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are and less competition they have, which means you have a better chance of getting to the top of the list by using the keyword.

You should be careful when you want to analyze keyword using KEI, because broad match (keywords and phrases entered without punctuation e.g. dog training) will presents a distorted picture of the competitiveness of a keyword even though it is an effective way to reach a wide audience. Why? Search engine will return for sites that contain individual words of the keyword (dog, training), plurals or synonyms of the keyword that you typed, other words included in the query (e.g. dog training behavior) or not in the same sequence as you typed (e.g. training dog). KEI analysis is better in exact match searches. Exact matching is enclosing in brackets your keywords or phrases. Example: [dog training].

KEI can help you choose the keywords but you should not rely too much on it. If the KEI for a keyword is high, it might not a good idea of using it if your top rank competitors are very big players. One more problem is when the keyword become more popular (more search) and more competitive (more web results) at the same time, it will show the same KEI number sometime, but actually the competition is already a bit tough (the divider or total webpage competing is getting bigger) and the chance to get in top 10 lists in search engine is lesser. Use common sense when you picking your keyword.

Next term will be R/S (Result/Search) Ratio. This is the ratio number of website with a specific keyword on their pages divided by the time a keyword is searched. The lower the number, the better it is to use as a term for optimizing a page.

Another thing that you must also remember is that, try to pick keyword which is not a general term, but rather more specific keyword phrases (long tail keywords). By following the guidelines above, high KEI, low R/S, 3 to 4 words phrases, I've highlighted the keyword (in red color - in the picture above) which I found to be most effective to be optimize for your website.

Finding the right keywords is a very important step in SEO. Take some time to find the best keywords and then optimize your pages for these keywords to get a high ranking in any major search engine.

Further recommended resources www.seo-madeeasy.info which provides free report on informative content of a quick and easy SEO to rank well in search engine.