As outlined on our Keyword Research Services Page, finding out which terms to target on your website or in your PPC advertising campaigns is the foundation to your SEO or advertising success. Without knowing the search volume, competition ratio, and eventually the conversion rate of each keyword or key phrase, you are flying blind.

The main purpose of keyword research is to find out which terms you should throw away, which you should keep, and which should become the primary focus of your website’s optimization or advertising campaign. There are two types of terms that should become the focus of your SEO and PPC advertising efforts: Powerhouses and Gems.

Powerhouse keywords are usually very general, often searched for, and highly competitive. These key terms often consist only of one or two words (such as “fitness marketing”) and do not convert to sales very well. However, they bring in such a large volume of searches each day that they remain on the final list of keywords regardless of competition or how well they convert.

Gem keywords possess a few rare and powerful characteristics: First, they get a high volume of searches, although probably not as much as your powerhouse key terms. Second, gems have very little competition. For whatever reason, your competitors haven’t picked up on the fact that so many internet users are searching for these terms. Lastly, a gem keyword converts like crazy. This is because people searching for such a specific term are usually at a later stage in the buying cycle than they were when searching for the more general, powerhouse terms. If I search for “Yoga,” I may be doing research, or even looking for idle reading material on the internet during my lunch break. However, if search for “affordable yoga classes in Denver,” chances are that my goal is get in touch with an affordable yoga instructor in Denver so that I can begin taking classes. Now that’s a lead!

Mining for gems and choosing the right powerhouse keywords is a multi-step deductive process:

• Step #1 Brainstorm
• Step #2. Check Log Files
• Step #3. Create a Wide-Net List
• Step #4. Toss out key words that are not searched for
• Step #4. Toss out words that are rarely searched for, but have high competition
• Step #5. Save the remaining keywords for optimization and PPC ads
• Step #6. Sort the list by search volume, and record the top 10-20 terms.
  • The top few of these are your Powerhouses.
• Step #7. Sort the list by competition ratio, and record the top 10-20 terms
  • (those with the least competition)
• Step #8. Compare your lists from steps 7 and 8.
  • Any terms that appear on both lists will be your Gems.

Click here to see a screenshot of what a keyword research final report should look like!