Keyword Research

Keyword research and analysis are two things many clients think are unnecessary. After all, they know the products and services they sell, and surely this represents a keyword. In a sense, there is a lot of truth to this.

One of the drawbacks of keyword research is too much data. You can type a core keyword like cosmetic dentistry into several pieces of software. The data will include matching terms like ‘cosmetic dentistry near me’ and related terms like ‘porcelain veneers’ and other search suggestions that include everything from ‘cosmetic dentist Manchester’ to ‘how to become a cosmetic dentist.’

Why research keywords and analysis data

You can't do successful SEO without it

The best way to describe why keyword research is both extremely important and an ongoing process is that the only real data you can trust around keywords is your own.

So, we identify keywords that we believe are the most important for users when purchasing. The truth of whether or not we were right is in the Google Analytics conversion data.

Google explains keywords - using it to determine search intents:

A search intent is the purpose of the Google query. Google groups these into four different types. More.

  1. Informational – the most popular type of Google search involves users searching for how-to types of content.
  2. Navigational – wanting to go directly to a site like Facebook, Twitter or other website destination. 
  3. Commercial – commercial search intent is where a user is on their buying journey. Perhaps they need more persuasion or using keywords to find the best company. Examples might be SEO Guildford.
  4. Transactional – transactional intent is where the user is ready to purchase. Examples would include laptops, summer sales, etc.

Core keywords

Core keywords represent exactly what your business sells. For example, solicitor, electrician etc, all represent core keywords. They are also referred to as short tail keywords and represent keywords with the most traffic, but not necessarily one is the result in the most sales to your business. For example, people searching for solicitor could be searching for a job. If I search for an electrician I could be searching for the average salary of electricians in London. So core keywords are only so useful.

Commercial keywords

Commercial keywords represent the next stage in matching keywords to sales. Commercial keywords can include brands, i.e. iPhone 15, or services like cheap accountant near me. Commercial keywords can be seen as that gentle nudge between being interested in a product and actually buying the product. It is also a reason to use sales terminology within your content. For example, "Affordable SEO services for small businesses" - you can see how using words like 'affordable' actually represent commercial keyword queries.

Localised keywords

Localised keywords are often simplified into keyword + location. The trending search query, for example "X company near me". Local SEO is basically optimising your website for core keywords and commercial keywords and then including a location. 'Solicitor in Woking', 'Affordable web design in Guildford' are all examples. The logic being is when you're ready to make a purchase you actually want to find a company close by.

Non-localised keywords

Depending on how your business works and whether or not customers need to visit your physical location, it may be more suitable to target users with block type content. Keyword research also gives us a range of questions that potential customers could use. Also referred to as key phrases. These will all include who, what, when and how-to type of sentences. One problem with doing this is that your competitors are looking at the same data, making it very competitive.

Creative keywords

Aside from using the data from tools like Ahrefs, a great way of creating new keywords is to brainstorm. Keywords that may have low traction i.e. a low monthly volume may, of course, result in the sale. For example, 'cosmetic dentistry with finance', 'divorce solicitor free first hour'. Both types of keyword do not appear in any data you can download from Google or with a piece of software. However, both of them could easily result in new business.

Vanilla Circus Ltd has over 17 years of experience in looking at additional keyword opportunities and how we can incorporate them into our content. As the entire team has a degree of traditional marketing experience creating new offers and looking at new ways of selling your products and services, we do very well.

Pinch of salt

As Google technology leans more to semantics, where there no longer looking at exact match keywords and trying to ascertain the reason and purpose behind a search query, there is no reason why you can’t take the keyword data and elaborate and improve on it.

Why undertake keyword analysis

In our experience, if we use the right research and analysis, we can increase the traffic to your website by over 400% annual enquiries or sales by 200%. Without looking at the data or doing the research, we are flying blind.

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