The SEO Keyword Research Series - Part Five: 'Is This Keyword Commercially Viable?'

The SEO Keyword Research Series - Part Five: 'Is This Keyword Commercially Viable

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In Part four of the SEO Keyword Research Series we looked at 'Evaluating the competition'. To recap, to ensure that you are getting the right traffic you need to find relevant keywords and evaluate the competition. This will ensure you are well on your way to driving the right traffic to your site and providing you with the sales and income you want. The third of the important 'Key 'elements is considering the commercial aspects of a keyword. More specifically, asking the question 'Is this Keyword Commercially Viable?'

So what is meant by the term commercially viable? Well, we are looking at the financial concerns of a keyword or phrase here. Basically, a keyword is commercially viable if it brings with it a strong flow of money, sales or profits to your business. A keyword is not commercially viable if it only generates a small amount of sales.

Here is why you need to consider this when choosing which keyword or phrase to target. Imagine you have just chosen some keywords that fit all of the 'key' elements. You optimise your website with your new keyword or phrase and (low and behold!!) you manage to obtain a page one ranking on the Google Keyword Search. Your site gets tonnes of traffic and everything seems to be heading in the right direction. The only thing is...you are not making any sales!! No one is buying anything!! The reason is you have accidentally targeted a phrase or keyword that is not commercially viable.

For this reason, it is imperative that you check whether your keyword or phrase will be profitable. In order to check this we need to look at Google AdWords and Cost Per Click (CPC).

You will have noticed on the right hand side of the Google search page there is a list of advertisements. These are placed by advertisers in order to create leads into their businesses website. Each time someone 'clicks' on the advertisement the advertiser pays Google an agreed amount of money - hence the term 'Cost Per Click'!!

As there are lots of advertisers wanting to use this service it turns into a type of bidding war - similar to the stock market. Over time, the market will decide what the cost of each keyword is depending on how popular it is in both search engines and with the advertisers. The figure ($) given provides us with an indication of how commercially viable this keyword is.

Therefore, to help you decide whether your keyword is commercially viable you need to check the Google AdWords and search for your keywords or phrases. The more expensive the CPC value the better the keyword or phrase.

This is not a quick process and it is not full-proof although it does give you a guide to work from. Admittedly, you can also buy software that will do this process for you although when you are starting out this is something you may not be inclined to do. Believe me, the time you spend doing this will save you time, effort and money later down the line. Just compare what you would lose if your site was profitable compared to it not.

Thanks for reading and see you in Part six: 'The 'Key' Word is Traffic'

Jon-Marc

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