Final Thoughts: Best Practices for Keyword Research & Targeting

The practice of keyword research seems straightforward at first – type a few relevant terms into a tool, get some results, target the good ones on your site, and watch the traffic roll in. In practice, however, the intricacies of every portion of this process make it invaluable to know the ins and outs of keyword search marketing. A few of the most important takeaways from this document include:

Keyword Tools Provide Relative Numbers, not Accurate Predictions
Be wary of using the keyword tools to forecast exactly how much traffic will come to your website. The vast differences in the estimations provided and the disparity of sources can mean that even the highest rankings won't bring in the level of visitors predicted (or that the predictions will be dwarfed by reality). Use the tools to determine which terms and phrases are more popular than another, but don't trust anything but real numbers garnered through test campaign experience to predict real volume.
Brainstorm Terms Cautiously
Remember to think about the value of a visitor who's come to your site via the term or phrase you target. The more specific the query, the higher the chance of conversion, so don't rule out less voluminous searches. The keyword tools can be great sources of brainstorming material, but they all require a solid starting point, and it's up to you to know enough about your industry to determine what keyword niches will provide value.
Keyword Targeting
Title tags, URLs, headlines, and text content are all good places to put your important terms, but beware of stuffing or spamming – the engines may penalize your site. It's also wise to remember that anchor text can have a huge impact on rankings – make sure to include keyword in anchor text when relevant.
The Long Tail
Oftentimes, the greatest amount of value in search referrals comes from the “long tail” of rarely-searched, low volume keywords. You can attract these visitors by writing consistently fresh, updated content on your site in the form of a blog, wiki, article list, newsletter, or even user-generated content.
Keyword Cannibalization
A common problem in keyword targeting is to attempt to attract the same search terms on many different pages on a site. While occasionally targeting the same keywords on a couple pages is unavoidable, be wary of using the same terms on every page's title tag and header. Instead, write more detailed pieces to target long tail terms and link back to the high-level, targeted page with the proper anchor text.