We start with a base set of key words and phrases that describe your company, products and services. Next we cast as wide of a net as possible, to determine every possible keyword for your site.

We research the keywords that are already bringing traffic to your site, as indicated by google analytics, and add these to the list.

We then expand the list using SEO keyword tools such as Google AdWord’s Keyword Planner, Google, Bing & Ask.com’s “Related Search” tools, Google Autocomplete, Yahoo! Search Assist, SEMRush, and/or harvesting the meta keywords of your competitors’ websites.

We add local modifiers (like your location and service area town names, counties, etc.) and mix them up with your keywords above, to build long-tail, niche- and locale-specific key word combinations, or key phrases.

We now have a very comprehensive (and VERY long) list of potential keywords tailored to your website.

We research all of the keywords, looking for the special few that are in the sweet spot, searched for often, without much competition. (We have software that tests these scenarios through google’s current algorithms, we don’t do this by hand with a calculator!)

The two most crucial factors we look at are keyword demand (the number of times the keyword is searched for monthly) and competition (the number of sites competing for the term in search engines’ listings). These can bring you lots of visitors — while being comparatively easy to rank for.

An example: “hunting land in Ohio for sale” is searched twice as much as “Ohio hunting properties for sale”. (I didn’t test these, this is just an example). The first one is searched 1 million times a month, and the second only 1/2 million. However, the first one is extremely competitive, with lots of other high quality sites using that same keyword, which might mean you would show up… on page 5. The second phrase is less competitive, and you would easily show on page 1.

So if 10 percent of search engine traffic clicked onto page 5, you would get seen (but not necessarily clicked on) about 100,000 times. Now the other phrase, only searched half as much, but if you are on page 1, you’d be seen 5 times as much! And having a page 1 result is more likely to be clicked on, too.

So here’s a situation where it makes much more sense to go with phrase 2, because 500,000 viewers is truly enough – especially if they are 500,000 people specifically looking to buy or sell land in your state!

We also consider the buying intention of the keywords, as not all keywords are created equal. Some may seem appealing when you look at their search volume, but here’s the twist: most frequently-searched-for terms are purely informational. While ranking for these will attract visitors to your site, they are unlikely to bring sales. Someone researching Ohio hunting laws is not ready to buy an Ohio hunting property. We want the folks looking to buy.

We now have the final set of “Golden Keywords” to concentrate our SEO efforts on.