Ask Kalena

You look familiar. Are you on Twitter? Subscribed to my feed yet?

Hi Kalena

I feel like I am stuck with my keyword research.

I am researching SEO keywords for an Australian business that specializes in tree removal and tree felling. The keywords I chose for them were “tree removal” and “tree lopper” however when I enter these into Keyword Discovery for Australia I get nothing (although “tree removal” comes up quite a bit for global search).

These keywords best describe the business and although the tree removal operator prefers not to be called a tree lopper he is happy for me to use this term for search engine purposes. Yet when entering these keywords into Google it seems a lot of competitor sites come up. I am confused! Can you help?

Louise

Hello Louise

In my experience, most keyword research tools (such as Keyword Discovery or WordTracker) are highly inconsistent or downright inaccurate when it comes to regional search databases.

What I would do is to use the global database when choosing the best keywords to target and then see how they go in terms of bringing you traffic. You can tweak the keywords as you go based on the response and traffic you get. I would start broad e.g. “tree removal”, “tree felling” and then narrow your market based on the responses you receive e.g. “tree removal [city]“ or “tree felling services”.

Another way to measure your potential regional market is to set up a basic pay per click campaign using Google AdWords, targeting Australia only and targeting the keywords you wish to test. Then monitor the number of impressions that your keywords get. Note I said impressions and not clicks. Set the budget low or design your ads in a way you don’t necessarily attract clicks (so it’s a cheap and dirty experiment).

The number of impressions you get per week will give you a ballpark idea of how many Australian searchers are looking for those particular keywords in Google per week.

Dear Kalena…

Any idea about this: When i select USA as a country in Google keyword tool and I search for ‘link building’ as a keyword… after data get displayed, from show and hide option i have selected show ‘local search Volume’.

When I scroll down a bit more, I see this: for key ‘affordable link building’ there is ‘Not enough data’ under local searches, but I can see ‘260′ monthly searches under global searches. What does it mean?

Does it mean – that keyword is no one searching from USA (as I selected my local country USA) but globally it’s being searched by some small portion of people around the globe but not from USA, because it is showing ‘not enough data under ‘local search volume’?

If that is a case, than it means I shouldn’t target those keywords for USA which are showing ‘Not enough data’ under local search volume, because there is no one searching that keywords and I will waste my time isn’t it?

What is your opinion on this? Thanks in advance!

Arshad

Hi Arshad,

The Local Monthly Searches column in the Google Keyword Tool provides an approximation of the number of monthly searches for a particular keyword, averaged over the last 12 months, for the “locality” specified. The “Not enough data” message (which in the current version of the tool shows up as a “-”) does not necessarily mean that the search volumes are too low to report, it indicates that (for whatever reason) there is insufficient data to calculate an average. This may mean that there are low search volumes for your selected area – but could also mean that for some reason the data over the last 12 months is incomplete.

Any decision you might make on whether or not to target a particular keyword phrase within a particular region, should not be based solely on search volumes. If a keyword phrase is highly relevant, and/or if it has a high conversion rate, you don’t necessarily need high traffic volume for it to be a worthwhile phrase.

Keyword Tools provide an approximation of historical search volumes, but it is often the relative volumes between keyword phrases which is more important than the actual volumes themselves.

Your question does highlight though that whatever tools you use, it is VERY important to understand the source of the data, and what rules have been applied in gathering and collating it. Without an understanding of this, any analysis you do, or any interpretations you make from the data may be invalid.

Andy Henderson
Ireckon Web Marketing

Hi Kalena

Another quick one if I may. In terms of providing keyword research to a client – could you please provide an example of what this might look like?

Thanks
Trina

Hi again Trina

I generally present the client with an Excel spreadsheet which has different tabs at the bottom with each keyword theme highlighted.

Within each tab, I collate the keywords in various ways e.g. alphabetically, by potential traffic, by KEI (keyword effectivness indicator) and by SEO potential.

Some keyword research services will do this for you e.g. SEO Research Labs

We are actually in the middle of editing our online Keyword Research 101 Course at Search Engine College. It goes into much greater detail about this topic. I don’t wish to provide a sample spreadsheet here, as it will be part of the Keyword Research 101 course curriculum, but a sample keyword research spreadsheet will be included in the lesson material for that course.

Hi Kalena

I have been looking into some free keyword research software and noticed there are a few out there; even Google’s free tool has gotten good kudos.

In lesson four of the SEO 101 course, you mention a few SEO tools that if we wanted we would have to eventually pay for – can you please let me know what the main differences are between the free and paid versions?

And if, I am just starting out in SEO and have a limited budget if the free versions will do what I need.

Thanks
Trina

Hi Trina

The main difference between paid and free keyword research tools is usually the number of keywords you can research. Also, some of the paid tools give you the ability to search specific databases e.g. Australia only or the last six months of search data versus the last five years of search data.

Our Search Engine Wiki has a pretty good list of keyword research tools. One great new tool I haven’t added to the Wiki yet is Ispionage. It’s particularly useful when researching target pay per click keywords for your AdWords campaigns, because it shows what your competitors are targeting.

Oh and try Raven Tools too. It’s more of a holistic SEO tool but it has great keyword management functionality.

Also don’t forget my previous blog posts about keyword research – they might help too.

Next Advanced SEO session is by Chris Dimmock of Cogentis to talk about SEO KW Research – Beyond the Ordinary.

You’ve mastered the KW tools – what next?

- find significant kws’

- uncover competitor’s keywords

- mine the long tail for elusive but valuable obscure search terms

- expand your *virtual shelf space* in surprising ways

KW Tools:

Adwords KW research tool is valuable, but keepin mind it’s just Google data

Adwords Traffic estimator

MS Ad Intelligence for Office 2007 – need an account Bing/msn – has a KW extraction tool – handy for importing from a URL.

WordTracker

Traditional Advice for KW Research

1) brainstorming session – but ask outsiders so you don’t get caught up in your own jargon
2) read your log files – only works if people are already finding you for those terms
3) Lots of time consuming grindy work with s/sheets – safest way

Chris’s Advice for KW Research

- singulars and plurals

- word order e.g. sydney hotels vs hotels sydney

- industry jargon falls into long tail

- searcher intent and your goals- make sure your kws become the conduit

-testing and analystics are key. Don’g be afraid to use SEM to tst your SEO KW coversion rates

- Define your goals- conversions, traffic, newsletter, signups etc. Does the target page provide access to the goal outcome.

Overview of Paid Tools

1) KW Discovery – gives you AU data

2) Word Tracker

3) SEMRush

Look at Current Trends for KW Research

- googletrends

- hot aol

- zeitgeist

- Twitter trends

- GG Insights for Search

- Yahoo Buzz – Buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com

- Google Buzz

- Trendistic

Chris says there’s a lot of talk about using social media to predict the future. Traditional kw tools don’t help when you’re trying to do this. Sometimes there is no recent history. So take an educated guess in that case and cover your bases.

Try KWSpy etc.

The Google Search based KW Tool is very powerful – allows you to research your competitors

- Remember to research misspellings

- Try MS adCenter Labs

Geographical Sales Expansion

- different markets have different keywords to describe things e.g. accommodation vs lodging vs accommodations

Conclusion

- Use KW tools

- Use PPC to test conversions before you SEO

- Don’t believe the numerical stats from tools

- Test or you’re wasting your time