Keyword Creation Process

Keyword Creation Blocks

When you start doing SEO, at some point, you need a keyword list to help you track and guide your efforts. This keyword creation process is just one way to make a list.

This guide should fit into your broader marketing efforts, and the keyword list should reflect a higher-order purpose of your marketing. E.g., You should distill the lists from the words/content created for a target audience.

To use an old analogy, the dog should be wagging the tail, and not the tail wagging the dog.

So with that in mind, let's get started.

Starting a Keyword Creation Process

Let's start with the first set of data, information that is ready and easy to gather.

Google Search Console Logo clear bgGoogle Search Console: The first recommendation is to make sure you install Google Search Console on your website. This program will provide you will data from Google about your website. It will provide you with search terms that Google has associated with your site. You can get a list of keywords straight from the source.

Crawl your site with an SEO Keyword Tool: Have an SEO program run a crawl on your site and pull a list of keywords for you. A free tool you can use on your Chrome Browser is SEO quake. Pull the list and put it into a spreadsheet.

Crawl your Competitors' Sites: Once you crawl your site, use the same tool on your competitor's site. Put this in another tab on the spreadsheet.

At this point, you should start to see some differences in how you talk about your products and services vs. your competitors.

Now to get some more keywords going.

This process will require time for you to sit and think. Ideally, you could sit somewhere without distractions and think through this next step. I'm going to suggest clusters to focus your keyword creation efforts.

Products/Service

  • List out all your products/services
  • List out features and benefits of your service
  • List out options/upgrades
  • List out upsells and standard packages/offerings

Target Audience

  • List the problem you solve and for whom
  • List your target audience's pain points
  • List "need-to-know's" for your target audience

Branded Terms

  • List your company name and principal/key employees
  • List your product/service names for your brand
  • List out your branded terms and codified language

Industry Jargon

  • List technical terms and specifications
  • List common industry phrases for your industry/product/service
  • List formal and informal terms for your product/service

Transactional Terms

List terms related to delivering your product/service
List terms related to the sales cycle of your product/service
List terms that people should expect to hear after buying your product/service

Common Questions

  • List out common questions you received
  • List out common questions you hear in your industry
  • List out abbreviated questions, and search inquires

Alright, you've got a good start for your keyword creation process.

Now we have a core list of words about your business and almost every facet of how your business works. Let's take a few minutes and refine what you have right now.

Negative Keywords

Looking over this list, you may have seen words or phrases that you did not like or are not the way you wish to be perceived.

  • Write down the words you do not like
  • Write down a version of the above words you do not want to be associated with as a business.
  • Be mindful of terms that others may use that have a similar meaning.
  • Put these on their tab in your spreadsheet.

Now you have a keyword list.

If you got into this, you should have quite a few keywords. Not all of these are golden or worthwhile words, but at least you have them in a place.

Next Step for Keyword Creation - Keyword Research

Once you have all these keywords, you want to research variations of the words and get some SEO stats on the words. Some typical values are:

  • Search Volume
  • PPC Costs
  • Competitiveness

Keyword research is essential and we have this process listed under Keyword Research Process

Keyword Gap Analysis - Competitor Keywords Gaps

Check on your competitors and see which keywords they are ranking for that your site is not.

  • Review their keywords ranks and the stats for various keywords
  • Identify keywords that are similar to your product or service
  • Review their keyword clusters and evaluate their content strategy
  • Incorporate any findings that can bolster your efforts.
  • Any information leveraged must be used in new and unique content. DON'T Plagiarize!

Also, Consider:

  • Topic Comeptiteros - Websites that have content describing your industry but don't sell a competing product or service.
  • Direct Competitors - Brick and Mortar, Online, or "at the same tradeshows" as your business and sell the same or very similar product/service/solution.
  • Substitute Competitors - Websites that sell a product/service that solves the same or similar problem as you, but with a different product or service.

 

Need some help with you Keyword List Creation?

Check out the Keyword Creation Process Service