The importance of keyword search
Posted by Sandra Cosser on 18 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Common SEO Topics, SEO Strategy
I read quite a lengthy, in depth article on the importance of key word research in understanding site visitors better. The point it, it seemed, was that it contained different information to all the other articles and blogs and pieces written about “traditional” key word searches and the “basics”. It stressed the fact that the most important point about key word research is to understand the site visitor. This is so that you can tailor your site to suit them and lead them directly to what they are looking for.
The primary point of difference is that the article states that in order to understand your visitors better, you should organise your research around six questions: 1) who wants it? 2) What do they want? 3) When do they want it? 4) Where do they want it? 5) How do they want it? Why do they want it?
Question number 2, what do they want, has been deemed the most important question on the list. If you don`t know what your visitor wants then how can you be of any use to him or her at all? How can you come up with any keywords to attract visitors in the first place? Question number 6, why do they want it? is rhetorical at the moment, it has no quantitative answer. The only answers we can come up with are subjective and conjecture, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Not all of key word search can be analytical and logical; some of it has to retain its humanness and raw gut instinct.
That is where the difference begins and ends. From there on the key word search article assumes the same colour and tenor as nearly every other one. It goes on to add that you need to choose key words carefully so that they can achieve high rank but also be built upon and that these words can in turn achieve high rank and so on. It talks about key words for branding and key words for conversion and the often overlooked advantage of using misspelled words as key words. It talks about organising the content of the landing page so that the right people are directed to the right pages and the proper use of key words in text, URLs, headings and titles. And it discusses the measurement of success.
It was a well written and interesting article. But it didn`t really have anything all that new to add to a subject that has been written about until the very last drop of interest has been wrung from it. Even if you are fairly new to the concept of key word search, there is precious little in articles that is unique enough to hold your interest. It`s not even enough to add graphs and statistics. It`s a dry topic. It doesn`t need a dry writing style too. If you`re going to write about it, try a little humour; spice it up with something way, way out of the box. A little weird goes a long way in the world of interesting.
