subject: Keyword Analysis [print this page] A huge part of search engine optimisation for web designers is not just optimisation of the website code and link building but key word analysis. The selection of key phrases is of more importance than any thing else as if these are not correct, much time and money can be wasted.
Many website owners want to target very broad phrases that they believe will bring millions of visitors each month and therefore turn into business. Using the example of a small ecommerce website that sells golf shoes, the owner may wish to target "golf". Should the site become ranked number one for "golf" this would without doubt bring huge amounts of traffic to the site. However, much of this would not be relevant traffic as there will be users that are looking for golf lessons, golf clubs, golf balls etc. These users will not look past the homepage and click back to the search results and move on to the next site. Targeting the phrase "golf" as it is such a competitive phrase would take much time and money and even if the phrase was ranked number one, would not produce much actual business.
It would be safer and more cost-efficient to target much more specific phrases such as "golf shoes", "nike golf shoes", "cheap golf shoes" etc. as these phrases will be much easier to gain top listings for, take less time and therefore less money. Traffic to the site would certainly be less but far more relevant so actual sales would likely be higher.
There is currently no tool available that will tell web designers exactly how much traffic a particular key phrase will receive. This is possibly due to search engines wanting to maintain relevant results opposed to website owners optimising their site for key phrases that will gain them more traffic even though the content may not be as relevant.
There are however some tools available online that will help website owners gauge how much traffic they may receive. The first and most obvious is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You must open an adwords account to access it but the account is free and easy to setup. Once you have your account you can input your key phrases and Google will analyse them giving you other suggested phrases and a guide on how much traffic these phrases will receive. From experience, these estimates of traffic seem to be inflated so they should perhaps not be taken literally but instead as a guide on the volume of traffic only.
Google Trends is another way that you may be able to see how much traffic you can expect if you have another website that ranks well. Because you can compare two phrases, you are able to enter the phrase in the first box that you know gains you a specific amount of traffic. The next box will be for the key phrase that you are researching and the results should show you the whether the level of traffic will be higher or lower, allowing you to make a judgment as to whether it is a key phrase worth targeting.
Lastly, Wordtracker will uses various sources to track key phrases and traffic for them and is able to give users traffic estimates as well as other niche key phrases.
Web designers must research their key phrases carefully and a plan adopted for gaining good listing for them once they have been agreed.
