Keyword Research

The development of any solid marketing plan requires research and this same logic holds true for search engine optimization. Simply focusing on earning high listings for a few key terms does not create the foundation for an effective search engine marketing campaign. At Captiva, we typically perform a Comprehensive Keyword Analyses to create a sound strategy that will deliver the best return on your investment.

The keyword identification process forms the building blocks of a search engine optimization campaign. It is during this step that we create the architectural plans for the whole program and determine the best course of action for achieving your goals. In this process, we identify keywords and determine their relative popularity among searchers.

Keyword Identification

In this phase, we start by asking you what keywords you think are most important to your business and why.  How do your current customers look for your products or services...both online and off?  We then review your existing website (if one exists) as as well as those of your competitors.  If you currently run CPC advertising programs, we can check the keyword detail reports to determine how people are actually finding your website.  The keyword ideas generated in these processes can then be plugged into the Google Keyword Planner and we can then generate a large list of potential keyword phrases and themes to target. 

Between client input, a review of the site and a run through keyword suggestion software program, we typically end up with a very comprehensive list.

Popularity Measurement

During the Keyword Identification process, we will uncover projections for the amount of times that each keyword/phrase is searched. This will help us in determining which search terms and themes we want to target with your campaign.

At this point, we typically review the list to determine which ones are most relevant to your business and then proceed to the competitive keyword analysis.

 

Competitive Analysis

Identifying the best target keyword phrases will put us on the right path; but to design a successful search engine marketing program, we must review the competition that exists for these phrases. The goal here is to determine the amount of effort or promotional expense and effort that will be needed to achieve high placement for each keyword/phrase.

At Captiva, we work with our clients to align their goals and expectations relative to the competition in their market. Since there are many methods for promoting a site, the competitive analysis allows us to better determine the costs associated with each method. Then we can prioritize opportunities for our clients based on expected ROI.

Manually review optimization levels and link popularity values of competing sites for your targeted phrases in the major search engines to evaluate the extent of on-page optimization and link building that will need to be done to earn top organic rankings.  Once we have this information, we can better determine the mix of SEO and CPC advertising to employ, which themes will be easier and cheaper to have success, and which phrases/themes will require significant effort.  Our typical process targets themes that consist of both competitive keyword phrases as well as "long-tail" phrases that tend to convert well but don't generate as much traffic as more generic phrases.

SEO Report Example

Keyword Conversion Tracking

Once a campaign is set up, we typically implement tracking programs that will show us which keyword phrases are generating the most sales or leads for our clients. This data allows us to focus our site optimization efforts and pay per click advertising dollars on those keyword phrases that are generating the best ROI.