The content on this page is based off of an article published in SearchEngineNews.com.
To learn more about Search Engine News, click here.

Continued from the Finding base keywords Tutorial, Part II of our Building a Keyword List Tutorial

Finding qualifying keywords

As we mentioned earlier, qualifying keywords are those words or phrases which modify the base keywords.  For instance, if you sell auto parts then car parts, auto parts, and automobile parts are three of your base keywords and store, wholesale, Honda, or Houston may be some of your qualifying keywords (such as Honda auto parts, car parts Houston, etc.).  Many of the techniques that we mentioned in our Finding base keywords Tutorial can help you find these qualifying keywords.  Here, though, are some other techniques which are particular suited to this task.

Check your website referral logs
When someone comes to your website via the search engines (i.e., they searched for a particular phrase on the search engines, saw your site listed, and clicked on the listing), the search term that they used to find your site is recorded in your web logs (you can usually access your web logs vis-à-vis your web hosting company, ask them how to access it).  It is extremely helpful to know which terms your customers are actually using to find you in the search engines. This is an indispensable source of feedback regarding which keywords your site visitors are finding you through.  Often times you can find quality keywords which your competition has overlooked, thus providing you with an easy source of targeted traffic.

Be descriptive and use action words
Add descriptive phrases to your existing keywords. For example, try including terms which relate to a problem.  Someone who is concerned about cost (i.e., that is the problem they are trying to solve) may very well add words such as cheap, affordable, low cost, and inexpensive to their search term.  Someone else who is concerned about the quality of a product may very well add words such as best, leading, greatest, and finest to their search term.  Indeed, at times it may even be advisable to target the problem itself.  For instance, if you provide fast internet connection, then you may want your site to show up for the term slow internet connection as your customers may use that term when trying to find information about how to solve the problem of slow internet connection. 

Similarly, your customers may also make use of action words in their searches.  These are words such as buy, find, or purchase.  Here is a preliminary list of descriptive and action words that you will want to consider using:

Cheap Cheapest Low-cost/low cost Low-price/low price Low-priced/low priced Affordable Inexpensive Not expensive Economical Reduced

Cost-effective cost effective Discounted Cut-rate cut rate On sale Sale Sale price Bargain Bargain basement priced

Best Top Finest Greatest Leading Buy Acquire Find Purchase Best Price

Finally, your customers may phrase their search query as a question. For example, the query where can I
buy a just cell phone gets a few searches a day according to WordTracker (as do the phrases where can I buy a prepaid cell phone, where can I buy a cell phone without a plan, and a few others).  And while neither of these phrases get a significant amount of traffic, they also don’t have much (if any) competition.  Phrases such as these can add a few orders to your site each date (and if you find a lot of phrases like these then they could add a significant amount of orders to your site each day).

Target Local Markets
Often times a product or service is relevant to a particular geographical area.  If that is the case then you’ll want to make sure to include your location as often as possible.  For instance, Chicago Bicycle Store instead of just Bicycle Store.  Also, make sure to also include all of the different idioms and unofficial place names by which your location is known.  For instance, Chi-Town Bicycle Store, N.Y.C. Kosher Deli, Philly Real Estate
Agent, etc.  And don’t forget larger geographical areas that relate to your product when applicable (for instance Illinois Tax Attorney as well as Chicago Tax Attorney).  You may even want to optimize your site for surrounding cities, suburbs and counties.  Just take out a map (or find one online) and find related place names. 

Here, by the way, are some lists of nicknames for common geographical areas:

• Nicknames for cities of the world
• Nicknames for cities in the United States
• Nicknames for U.S. States

 
Putting it all together
You now should have large list of base keywords and an even larger list of qualifying keywords.  All that is left to do is to combine them together.  And guess what, we have just the tool for you.  It is called the Keyword List Generator put out by Aaron Wall at SEOBook.com.    Here is a screen shot of the tool to see how it works:

In Word List 1 we have our qualifying keywords (find, buy, cheap discounted — note that when using the program there are no spaces between your keywords).  In the Word List 2 section we have our base keywords and in Word List 3 we have yet another qualifying keyword.  After that, all you have to do is hit Generate and the program combines all of the keywords exactly in the order that we entered them.  Couldn’t be easier!
 

Base and Qualifying keywords
You may have noticed that many of these techniques can also help you find qualifying keywords.  The opposite is also true, many of the techniques that help you find qualifying keywords can also help you find base keywords.  These aren’t hard and fast rules, but rather general guidelines.  These techniques are particularly good for helping you find your base keywords, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t jot down a good qualifying keyword when you come upon it.  Indeed, you may want to simultaneously research your base and qualifying keywords all at once.  It really just depends on your personal style.  Either way, these techniques should help you build a large, relevant keyword list. 

You are now ready to analyze that list for so as to determine which keywords to optimize first, which second, and which not at all.  As such, you are ready for the next tutorial.

Next tutorial: Keyword Analysis
Previous tutorial: Finding base keywords

• Return to the search engine optimization tutorial page
• Return to the main tutorials page

This tutorial written by:
Moshe Morris
President of SEMBasics
Chief Research Analyst at Internet Marketing Initiative (www.internetmi.com)

Gain an Unfair Advantage in the Search Engine Wars -- SearchEngineNews.com

The content on this page is based off of an article published in SearchEngineNews.com.
To learn more about Search Engine News, click here.