Keyword Research is Overrated

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Almost every SEO will tell you keyword research is a key preliminary task when developing content. I have to say I am a minimalist when it comes to kw research. Before you ask, no I don’t shoot from the hip. Over the last 2-3 years I’ve gradually replaced approximately 80-90% of my kw research time with semantic research and analytics. For now I will exclude the analytics piece and focus on what I mean when I say semantic research.

My Keyword Research Definition:
To gather a list of word or phrase variations organized by search volume. Lists are most often sub-organized by competition analysis such as KEI. (keyword effectiveness index)
Note: In my opinion this approach is best used for short tail SEO.

Example:

My Semantic Research Definition:
To gather a list of words or phrases thematically aligned with a planned article. This is aimed to increase usability through improved reader comprehension and SEO friendliness from an increased number of long tail opportunities.

Example:

You may have noticed that I left off a key component while defining semantic research. I purposely excluded improved SERP rankings for semantically optimized pages. This is not because I don’t believe strong themes improve your rankings for your primary kw. I absolutely do but I have no solid proof and to be honest I really don’t care either way. Increasing your long tail opportunities is key to semantics, LSI, theming…whatever you want to call it. The rest is just gravy.

How does semantics increase long tail opportunities?
I think search behavior really comes into play here. More often than not searchers are not going to find what they are looking for on the first query. If your content is 100% monolithic, focused on a certain term then you have very few chances to capture the attention of a prospective searcher.

Let’s say all your content is focused on ‘PC Games’. The searcher may do a Google query for ‘PC Games’ as their first choice. Unfortunately your monolithic approach lands your page at #150 in the serps. The searcher scans through the top 20 then decides to refine their query to ‘Computer Games’. Ok, you are still fine here. Your kw research told you that ‘Computer Games’ is a variation of ‘Games’ so you slid 1-2 of those phrases into your content. This time you are #100. The searcher scans to 20 again and refines their query once more. You lose again…

There are far too many results so the searcher starts adding related words onto their phrase to refine things down a bit. They search for ‘Computer Game Cheats’, ‘Computer Game Walkthroughs’ and ‘Online Strategy Walkthroughs’. Unfortunately you didn’t add any related terms. Your content was full of ‘PC Games’ along with a little filler so you never had the opportunity to rank for those phrases.

I think I’ve covered enough for one post but stay tuned. I plan to write a very actionable piece on how to use semantics free of charge with real world examples next.

by Dane Lyons