Is Keyword Research An Ongoing Activity?
Is keyword research a one-time event or an ongoing concern? You might think it’s something you do today and forget about once your site is built, but it’s not. I’ll tell you why.
What’s popular today may not be popular next year. Searchers could be hot on to a particular search phrase one day and move on to another search phrase a month later. I’ve seen it happen.
As a for instance, today searchers may flock in droves to Google “local SEO” but 30 days from now the number of searches for that phrase could drop by 200% while searches for “geotargeted SEO” could rise by 300%. The numbers may change, 150% and 250%, but the principle is still the same. People’s search habits are about as fickle as their voting habits.
Sarcasm aside, if you stay on top of what is popular today in terms of what people are searching for at the search engines, then when what people are looking for has shifted in your industry, you’ll be on top of it. You’ll be in a much better position to react to the market and start targeting those newer search phrases within your search engine optimization efforts – even if on a temporary basis.
9 Responses to “Is Keyword Research An Ongoing Activity?”
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
Tel - 781-999-1222
nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
SEO should, in theory, never stop! Research is especially important to keep a track of where you are. If you don’t track and check at least once a month, you might lose your placement and not even know. Catch anything quickly and you have more of a chance to get your positions back again!
I do this for any customer who has be on retention – stay ahead of the game!
Hi Nick,
Good point, as usual. You bring up an excellent topic.
While you don’t want to completely change your keywords based on the “hot topics” people are searching for (this would mean you have to completely change the focus of your business), my take from your article is you have to constantly fine-tune your keywords as they relate to your product/service offerings.
For example, if you sell road bikes, don’t change your keywords from “road bikes” to “Vancouver Olympics” just because the latter term is getting very hot. Instead, include “Olympic road bikes” or “US Olympic team road bikes” in your mix of keywords to capture traffic from anybody watching the Olympics who is interested in buying a road bike that Olympians use. (Of course, you’ll have to make sure you sell those bikes if you want to convert on this traffic.)
I completely agree with your point that fine-tuning your keywords in this manner can help your business stay ahead of the curve and capture traffic long before your competitors even realize the shift in search trends.
Even better is if you can look into your crystal ball and predict what search terms will be hot in the coming year (as they relate to your business). This way you can start your backlink-building efforts early for those terms so you rank at the top of search results as the search terms pick up steam.
Keep up the good work Nick!
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the comment…very true. Staying ahead of the game is always essential!
Hi MasterLinker,
Great points and examples…thanks again for being such a great loyal reader!
I can personally attest to the changing nature of keywords. When I started my site on how to make video, Paris Hilton and her infamous sex video totally dominated the keywords. It was so bad I nearly passed on entering the niche. Thank GOODNESS you don’t see her much at all today for the term. I am very grateful! Bye bye bimbo baby.
Lorraine
Hi Lorraine,
Thanks for sharing this example…thank goodness it is not in the news and in search too
Hi Nick;
I have only been in this game for 4 years and have done all my own linking and website optimization. I sell rural houses and have found that since we have the credit crunch the efectivity of some of my keyword had dropped, I redid them and Bingo my hits through search engines picked up again.
Mark
Hi Mark,
Thanks for sharing your situation. It is good to hear that after a re-optimization and additional keyword research your organic visitor levels increased.
Interesting discussion. I enjoyed the content of both the post and its comments.
I believe as long as you produce relevant comment around the same topics and similar key phrases at regular updated content, chances are you could more easily rank highly for the new keyphrases that become popular among the searchers.
Blogging is one such way of content creation around the same topic. Using a search engine friendly platform like WordPress in which you post your well-optimized copies using those well-searched keywords could help too.
Hi Website Promotion Blog,
This is very true! WordPress has really become the standard professional blogging platform…