Keyword Research Schedule
I was doing some keyword research this morning and was reminded of a very important issue that I'd like to share.
It's February, and I just did some KW research related to Calgary (my home town,and a place I'm very familiar with, as far as KW research goes).
Services like KeywordDiscovery and Wordtracker typically default to showing what's in their database for the last few months (usually around 3 months or so).
That means that right now, I'm seeing KW's like "calgary valentine sale" and almost no searches for what I *know* is one of the biggest KW's for the city - the Calgary Stampede.
If I didn't know better, and used this KW research, I might come to the conclusion that the Stampede wasn't that big of a deal. But it is, and KW research done in August will clearly show it.
This seasonality especially affects seasonal things like tourism, tax preparers and so on, but keep in mind that it will have an effect on almost all industries, either directly or indirectly. For example, the end of summer is when a lot of people move to go to school. This results in more searches for anything from pots and pans to computers to local nightclubs as the new residents start to settle in.
As a result, I recommend doing KW research at least once per quarter (ie every 3 months) and to aggregate the data at least once per year.
Aggregation should be the following reports (keep them in a binder or in a folder somewhere):
- Quarterly KW Reports, saved by year.
- Yearly aggregate reports of the quarterly reports for the year, also saved by year.
- Quarterly Reports, aggregated and *trended by KW* from the same quarter for each successive year.
- Yearly trended reports of KW popularity. This is so the temporary huge popularity of a topic isn't directly affecting your decision making. "Pam Anderson" was an extremely popular KW back in the early 2000's, but not so much today, for example.
This will typically give you enough good information to act on, yet not be terribly onerous to create, analyze and report on.
Ian
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1 comment:
Even for a small website, scheduling a regular keyword research is very important. This will help you in keeping track and updating your keyword lists. It is also a good way of getting one up your competitors, especially if you find keywords that are not yet saturated.
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