Keyword Analysis and Website Structure

Part 4 of How to Do Keyword Research Tutorial

By Persuasionworks Team

Now we'll use a keyword tool to search up to five levels deep on each new keyword to ensure you’ve discovered all the interesting terms. This means you “drill down” by searching on each new set of results that comes up.

Search on each keyword to get results, then search on any new keywords that come up to get more results, then search on any new keywords that come up to get more results. Continue searching until you’ve gone five levels deep or there are no new interesting keywords being returned.

Example of searching five levels deep:

vacation
Hawaii vacation
Hawaii vacation rentals
Oahu vacation rentals
North Shore Oahu vacation rentals
 

Use a Keyword Tool to Do Deep Analysis

• Use the Google Keyword Planner to search on the first keyword you found. For example: vacation
   
• Note any interesting new keywords in the results in a new column of your spreadsheet.
   
• Now search on the first keyword in this new column. For example: Hawaii vacation.
   
• Note any interesting new keywords in the results in a new column of your spreadsheet.
   
• Search on the first keyword in this new column. For example: Hawaii vacation rentals.
   
• Note any interesting new keywords in the results in a new column of your spreadsheet.
   
• Search on the first keyword in this new column. For example: Oahu vacation rentals.
   
• Note any interesting new keywords in the results in a new column of your spreadsheet.
   
• Search on the first keyword in this new column. For example: North Shore Oahu vacation rentals.
   
• Note any interesting new keywords in the results in a new column of your spreadsheet.
   
• Continue searching each new set of results until you have searched up to five levels deep for every keyword you found, or until there are no more useful new keywords being returned.
   
• Repeat this search process for each keyword on your list.
   
• Find search volume and number of competing pages for new keywords as discussed above.
   

Competitor Keyword Analysis

Reverse engineer your top search engine competitors to analyze the SEO keywords they’re using.

Go to Google and do a search for your main top-level keyword. For example: travel.

Go to the home page of the first relevant website (the home page may not be the page listed in the search results). Note down the relevant main site categories from the navigation menu onto your spreadsheet. Don’t include any non-relevant categories like “Newsletter”.

Repeat this process for the top 10 competitors’ sites.

Clean up the list, removing any categories you feel are not relevant enough to the main top-level keyword. You can also modify categories as needed.

You may also decide to do further keyword research based on new categories you find.

Repeat the above process for the plural of your main keyword (if applicable). Only note new categories that you didn’t find above.

Repeat the above process for each of your synonyms and their plurals. Only note new categories.
 

Organize Keyword Categories

Organize your list of keywords into a logical structure of categories and sub-categories.

This gives you a potential website SEO structure that lets you make decisions about what themes to include in your site.

How to organize categories:

• SEO site structure – Your site should be structured in a hierarchy of silo > articles. You need at least five silos to establish your theme.

  If a silo topic is broad, you may need to create sub-silos under it: silo > sub-silo > articles.

  If a silo topic is really broad, you may need to even use sub-sub-silos: silo > sub-silo > sub-sub-silo > articles.

  However, it’s not really a good idea to go down any more levels than this because your site becomes too complex.
   

• Determine major categories – Assess your keyword list and determine what the major categories are. These are potential silos to include on your site.

  Silos should have a minimum of about 5-7 million competing pages. This ensures there are probably enough good “child keywords” under that theme that can be used as article topics.

  Remember that at least five articles / pages are needed to support each silo theme.
   

• Determine sub-themes and articles – Look at what topics fit naturally under the major categories as sub-categories or articles. For example: Vacations > Beach Vacations. Copy and paste keyword lists as needed to achieve this.

  Whether a topic works best as a sub-category or an article really depends on how broad it is. Generally you can judge how broad a topic is by the number of competitors.

  If there are at least five relevant child keywords, you can use the topic as a sub-category and the keywords under it as articles.

  However, if the topic is narrow and does not have any good child keywords, use it as an article.
   

Category Tips

When a keyword phrase is worded awkwardly, you can rearrange it to sound better to a human visitor. The search engines will still recognize your intention and give you credit.

You can combine keywords that are almost identical into one page.

Your research may lead you into new areas you hadn’t initially considered. This is good, as long as the keywords remain relevant to your site and business.

You will need to do a ~keyword search for each page of your site, including the home page. Use the synonyms you find in your page text. This reinforces your theme by using related words.
 

Decide on the Themes to Include in Your Site

Okay, now you have some decisions to make about where you want to position yourself in your market.

Below I’ve give you some issues to consider as you choose which themes you should include in your site.

As with the steps covered above, our SEO service, which uses professional research tools, is much faster than doing the work manually. It's also more accurate in determining exactly how themes are related to each other. For example, 20% of pages that talk about travel also mention vacations.

What this means is that if you create a site about travel, then vacations is an excellent theme to include as a silo or section of the site, because it is highly relevant to and supports the overall theme of travel.

When considering what your site is about and what themes to include, ask yourself:

• How relevant is this theme to my business? Are visitors who use this keyword likely to buy what I’m selling?
   
• Does the keyword appear to be used early in the buying cycle, indicating a need for me to educate and build a relationship with prospects before the sale?
   
• These “educative keywords” are generally cheaper to buy traffic than “buying keywords,” and you can take prospects off the market early and stop them searching if you can meet their needs. However, there may be a longer lead time before you make a sale.

• Does the term appear to be a buying keyword that could result in immediate sales?
   
• Both types of keywords are useful to include on your site, but you should factor into your business model the amount of contact that may be needed before you make a sale.

• Does the keyword seem to be “expert vocabulary” – terminology that only someone with expertise in the market would use?

  These keywords may not have high traffic or cost, but they are useful for establishing relevance. Use them in your page content to add authority.

• What is the AdWords CPC (cost per click)? High CPC is a good indicator of money (buyers) in the market. You can view CPC on the Google Keyword Planner .
   
• How many searches does the keyword get? Are you targeting a worldwide audience, or a specific country?

• How much competition is there?

  For silo themes, you want to have a minimum of about 5-7 million competing pages on Google. This is a rule of thumb to help assure the theme is broad enough to have at least five good article themes within it.

  Five million refers to competitors that are returned with keyword phrase match (enclosed in quotation marks), if it’s a phrase. For example, “Hawaii vacation”. Phrase match shows more accurately the number of real competitors who have intentionally optimized to use the phrase.

• How broad (how high up the vertical market) do I want to go with my site?

  You should aim to target your site to keywords that are highly relevant to you, with good traffic and cost per click.

  Very broad, competitive themes will take longer and be more work to rank well on. Often it's a good idea to start with a more narrowly-focused site and then expand to cover broader themes over time.

After you have completed this tutorial please go to: seo-marketing-introduction and seo-marketing-site-structure.

Part 1: How to Do Keyword Research > Part 2: Keyword Synonyms >
Part 3: Keyword Competing Pages > Part 4: Keyword Analysis