Keywords will probably always play an integral role in online marketing. While keyword use can be both haphazard and counterproductive—as in the practice of “keyword stuffing”—smart keyword use is essential to good SEO & effective SEM. It provides relevant information to the search engine algorithms as well as to search engine users; it provides focus and direction for content creation. As such, targeting the right keywords is a critically important step in an integrated marketing approach.

Identifying the best keywords can be easier said than done, however. This is not because there is a lack of data on which to base the decision. Actually, there is an abundance of it. Knowing which metrics to focus on—which data points provide the best insight into effective keyword selection—is the true challenge.

Meaningful Metrics: Where to Begin?

If there is any one metric that is more or less universally accepted as significant, surely it is average monthly search volume. This metric is easy to find, using Google’s Keyword Planner, and provides a good basic sense of how popular given keywords really are among search engine users.

There have been criticisms mounted against this function in Keyword Planner, suggesting that the data is not always precise; that’s likely true, but the data is still reasonably useful and compelling, especially if you narrow your findings to the relevant geographic region—something that is crucial for any local or regional business or website.

Additional Metrics to Consider

While search volume is a good starting point, there are some additional metrics that might provide illumination—helping you narrow down your list of good keyword candidates, and perhaps also discover some that you might otherwise miss. A few examples include:

Search volume over time. The popularity of given search terms is ever in flux—and while a term might be fairly popular now, that doesn’t guarantee that it will be popular in a year’s time. Search terms that are seeing a downward trend in popularity may not be good investments of your marketing budget.

Suggested bid prices. Keyword Planner will provide “suggestions” for the price to bid on given keywords. If you have more accurate cost-per-click data on hand, use that—but if not, suggested bid prices can help you get a ballpark of the monetary value a particular keyword might bring.

Number of search results. This is not always a good metric to use, and in fact Google really discourages it—but, if you find something with a lower-than-normal number of results, that points to an opportunity to get a bit more competitive. It’s certainly worth looking into.

Current keyword rank. If you have a site that’s been around for a few years, you can use this metric to determine where it currently stands at a keyword level—something that can provide you with a meaningful baseline and reference point.

Estimated first position value. What’s the monetary value of a keyword ranking in the first position? Knowing this can help you determine not only how much value a first position would be for the keyword, but also how much it might cost you to achieve that.

There are other metrics, besides—and if you’d like to know more about the ones we lean on at enCOMPASS, we’re happy to talk it over with you. Contact our team to start the conversation.