Is there a viable, no-brainer method of SEO keyword selection?

Published by ndixon on August 3rd, 2008 Leave a comment »

Over the past few weeks I have been exploring a definable system of defining SEO keyword selection beyond a rather fuzzy assessment of potential and into the realms of specific and measurable criteria. When discussing keyword selection, I am frequently being asked for a clear-cut, absolute process. This is a short discussion on competition criteria [...]

Over the past few weeks I have been exploring a definable system of defining SEO keyword selection beyond a rather fuzzy assessment of potential and into the realms of specific and measurable criteria. When discussing keyword selection, I am frequently being asked for a clear-cut, absolute process. This is a short discussion on competition criteria for keyword selection – but for now, includes no specific tips or techniques.

Search keyword selection appears on the surface to be a straightforward process: select
those that have high search volume but low competition. What clouds this process is our definition of what constitutes “competition”.

The question of optimisation

Google measures a number of criteria in determining a web page’s returned position for a particular search term. Understanding such criteria and ensuring a web page fulfills as much as possible, by whatever means, is what SEO is all about.

When you perform a search on Google, you will discover how many other sites are competing for visibility for that search term – and this can be a pretty big number. But are you truly competing against all of them?

The top pages returned on a search are those that Google has determined best fit their criteria. SEO is an active process of enhancing the criteria therefore it is logical to assume that you are competing against only those pages that have been – intentionally or inadvertently – optimised.

SO I bet you are asking, how one might determine the number of sites that are optimised – i.e. are true competition.

intitle and inanchor

Here’s the theory: optimising a web page often includes using target keywords in the page title and also frequently in clickable hyperlinks within that page. One might think therefore, that if we ask Google to return only pages that include the search term in the page title and in hyperlinks, we might more accurately determine the number of optimised pages.

Theory is nice, but the reality is a gross inaccuracy with what Google returns for such searches. A little digging into the actual pages returned by intitle: and inanchor: filtered search demonstrates how unreliable this really is.

Broad search vs exact search

Perform your Google search with the term surrounded by quotes, and you will generally see a much smaller number of competing web pages than a normal, broad search. Look at broad results and exact results side by side, and you get some insight into the competitive space. I believe the closer the exact search count is to the broad search count, the higher level of competition for that term.

PPC (Adwords) competition

Here’s an additional thought: if people are prepared to pay real money to have their names show up for a search terms – sometimes a great deal of money per click-through – then that term is certainly competitive (this notion came out of a recent meeting with an SEO guru). Should we, therefore, take the number and level of competition for Adwords placement into account when assessing the competitive landscape of a keyword?

As an additional criteria it seems to make sense, but the nature of those paying advertisers must also be taken into account. For example, are they corporates vying for brand-names, or are they your direct online competitors. Each presents a greater or lesser challenge.

Conclusion

I warned you are the beginning that there were no specific answers in this post and despite weeks of exploring ideas, I am nowhere near providing a definitive solution.

A no-brainer solution might be little more than a pipe-dream, but I still believe there may be a definable means of at least help in narrowing the field of potentially profitable keywords to those that are most worthy of further exploration.

Tags: Keywords, research, search serps, SEO/SEM
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