Locking in the SEO keyword list is the first and most important step in developing a SEO strategy for any website. A strong keyword list will deliver the greatest ROI to your business by ensuring the right people are being driven to your site.

Key features of a tight SEO keyword list

Highly relevant, specific terms

• The most important trait of a keyword is that it is highly relevant and not generic.
• Finding the keywords that people ready to buy (known as qualified traffic) are using in their search queries will add the most value to your business and give the best return on your SEO investment.
• For example, if you are a retailer of shoes located in Subiaco you wouldn't want to target the keyword 'shoes' as this is too broad, extremely competitive, isn't reaching people specifically wanting to buy a pair of shoes and isn't geographically targeted to people in your area. Even if you were to rank, the click through would be low due to the irrelevant nature of your site to most users.
• A better keyword would be 'shoe stores Subiaco' as it is going to drive highly qualified traffic to your site with users who are ready to visit a store in Subiaco and make a purchase.

Closely tied to the products or services on your site

• As a general rule of thumb, there should be a page in your site directly tied to each keyword in the strategy.
• To continue the shoe store example, if there is a section on your site for different shoe styles it makes sense to have the SEO keywords reflect this, with keywords such as 'boots perth' and 'summer sandals perth'. By having this synergy between the site and keywords, the SEO results will be far better.

Maximum of 25 keywords, not repetitive

• The more terms in your keyword list, the lower your site keyword density will be. Keyword density is an important factor for search engines determining how relevant your site is to searchers.
• The aforementioned rule of one page to one keyword comes from being able to optimise a page for a single keyword. A long keyword list with many similar terms makes this difficult and hinders the ranking potential of a site.
• The SEO keyword list for the shoe store shouldn't contain the keywords 'shoe store', 'shoe store perth', 'shoe store subiaco', 'shoe store WA' and 'shoe store Western Australia' as this is highly repetitive making it difficult to optimise a single page for all these terms, and takes up space in the keyword list for other terms that would deliver more value.

Good search volumes

• While there may be hundreds of terms that are relevant to your business, not all of them will have a search volume.
• Including a keyword where there is no search volume has little value to the overall results seen from SEO management as neither traffic or conversions will increase.
• When deciding which keywords you can safely cull from the list and which to leave or add in, looking at the search volume and the potential for value is a great indicator.
• However, a keyword with an extremely high search volume can be negative. A huge search volume indicates an extremely competitive playing field. In deciding to target these high volume, competitive keywords you should consider the time available to work on the site to improve SEO. Will getting a high traffic keyword ranking take away from time that could be spent on other keywords that are drivers of qualified traffic?

Why it's so important to find the right keywords

The more targeted your keywords are, with few repetitions, the greater your opportunity to rank, resulting in an extremely strong SEO strategy with results that exceed expectation.A generic and diluted SEO keyword list results in a site that will struggle to rank for any of the chosen terms and won't improve traffic over time.Without a highly relevant and targeted keyword list it will be extremely difficult to rank for those terms, and the traffic arriving at your site won't be relevant. Irrelevant traffic results in low engagement metrics which impacts your ability to rank higher in the future.A good keyword list is about balance. The balance between high and low search volumes. The balance of highly relevant keywords without depleting search volume. The balance between highly relevant keywords and site content to support these terms. Getting this balance right can be tricky and why sometimes adjustments are needed following the initial SEO implementation to make sure the SEO strategy is as strong as it can be.If you are interested in a review of your current keywords or getting an ongoing SEO strategy in place, get in touch with Bang Digital by calling 08 9328 7000 or send us an email.