Search Engine Optimization

If you’ve been using Google Keyword Tool for your keyword research, you might be missing some of the features (i did). The most obvious yet the most important one is the match feature. In Adwords you can target keywords using broad match, exact match, phrase match and negative match. You can do the same in Adwords keyword tool and filter phrases by match options. On the right hand side right above the “add” link there a dropdown menu called “match type”. Choose the match you like and you will get different search volume numbers. For example:

• Broad Match: mexico vacation 246,000
• Phrase Match: mexico vacation 201,000
• Exact Match: mexico vacation 27,100

Match Descriptions:

• Broad match: keyword (no punctuation)

Show up for all phrase variations that contain your keyword. For example someone searching for “reviews of vacation by professionals to mexico” or “mexico travel vacation guides” will see your ad. This is the basis for the search count that Google Keyword Tool gives.

• Phrase match: “keyword”

This option ensures that the ad only shows up if the search matches the phrase. For example the ad will show up for “mexico vacation travel guides”, but will exclude “vacation travel guides to mexico”. As with the broad match this is the basis for Google search count in the Adwords tool.

• Exact match: [keyword]

Self explanatory.

Getting Keywords From the Analytics

Analytics is a great place to mine keywords. As you rank for you core phrase you will notice that most of the traffic still comes from long tail (assuming you’ve got enough content). There you can mine keywords and discover nuggets of gold otherwise inaccessible in keyword research tools.

Google webmaster tools is another place to discover keywords. In the “top search queries” tab you will see top keywords your website shows in search results. Sometime you can find phrases you did not think of. Simply take each phrase and do a quick research on it. If there’s enough search volume for the phrase, create a separate page designed to target that keyword, and put up a link on the index page to pass page rank.