When it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), I have to tell you – marketing managers make a lot of mistakes.

I can easily count 20 of them. Of these, there is one mistake that I see over and over again. When this mistake is committed, it can destroy the business value of any SEO project. The mistake I am referring to occurs within SEO Keyword Research.  I call it the High Search Volume Addiction (HSVA).

What is HSVA?

HSVA is the addiction to selecting SEO keywords that show high search demand today, to the exclusion of other key selection factors.

Now I want to make this clear – I get HSVA. I really do. In these busy times, researching and selecting keywords based on search demand alone, is compelling. Especially considering that many keyword selection tools are free, e.g. the Google Keyword Tool.

So you’ve just used a keyword tool, and discovered 3 keywords that produce the highest search volume in their category.  You’re feeling pretty good about investing your SEO dollars in these keywords. All good?

Maybe.

The truth is, search volume is just 1 of 3 factors to consider. You have to cross-check search demand with two other key research and selection tools: trend analysis, and conversion analysis.

Trend Analysis

Trend analysis is an underused tool in SEO keyword research. Trend analysis can help you determine whether or not the ‘high search volume’ keyword you have chosen to spend thousands of SEO dollars on, is a declining rollercoaster ride. In other words, trend analysis can help you determine whether your targeted keyword has retained, or increased, its search demand over the past three to four years.

Take a look at the keyword ‘bicycles’ below.  Based on its decreasing search demand since 2004, would you want to spend thousands in SEO fees to be #1 for this keyword?  Or would you rather focus your investment on another keyword that has proven its staying power?

• Source: Google Trends (Australia), 18 February 2010

Have a look at another related keyword, ‘bikes’. This one appears to have maintained its search demand over the same period:

• Source: Google Trends (Australia), 18 February 2010

Based on this trend analysis, which keyword would you choose?

We have one more step to go, before you make your final selection.

Conversion Analysis

I always marvel at how some marketing managers fail to grasp that SEO is just like paid search; the only difference is that instead of paying per click, you pay per month – the agency fee, that is.

Once you start thinking of SEO like SEM, you start to treat your keyword research with a lot more vigour.

Let me explain. Assume you took over as head of SEM for a large company, and then discovered that one of your search managers was bidding on 3 keywords that produced 40,000 clickthroughs between them at a cost of $40,000 – but with 0 conversions. What would you do? Would you be horrified? Would you consider firing that person?

If you answered yes to the above, I want to ask you: Why?

Probably because your search manager focused on search volume, but ignored Conversion. If an SEM keyword is clearly not converting, then why continue bidding on it and waste the company’s marketing budget? By the same logic, why would you invest your SEO dollars in keywords that show poor conversion history?

Whenever you conduct SEO keyword research, make sure you use your SEM conversion data to identify those keywords that show the highest conversion rate. Then cross-check these high-converting keywords against the keywords that have been identified through your previous search volume analysis and trend analysis.

This process should produce a list of SEO keywords that will generate the highest level of search volume (today and in the future) and conversion volume.

To summarise, the key tools to use for your SEO keyword research are search volume analysis, trend analysis, and conversion Analysis.

The above process might seem straightforward. Yet, when it comes time to conduct SEO keyword research, few marketing managers (or agencies for that matter), take the time to use these selection factors. This is probably due to the amount of research introduced by such a framework.

Those who do, ensure the success of their keyword selections, and SEO project in general.

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In the online marketing world, and with SEO in particular, there’s a lot of accepted wisdom – ideas which people have picked up but often are untested.

One thing I’m passionate about is challenging accepted wisdom and establishing the truth. This allows us to focus efforts on tactics with maximum effectiveness for our clients, and also satisfies my insatiable intellectual curiosity As a result, I am constantly running experiments on various sites (with the owners informed consent of course!).

A few months ago I asked: do free directories still work? With SEO, I always think back to the value to the user, which is how Google thinks. Given many free directories are of low value and the barrier to entry for creating a free directory and submitting a site to a directory is low, I had wondered if Google had completely discounted them and everyone was wasting their time submitting to them.

To test this theory, I worked with a leading shopping cart comparison site. The site had no link building program during the test period, so the results are clean. I had discovered a desirable keyword not being targetted by this site – the site wasn’t ranking for it. I modified the homepage title tag to incorporate this phrase, and after a few weeks to settle in was ranking steadily at 15.

I then submitted the site to about 300 free directories, using the phrase and minor variants of it as anchor text. Not wanting to look too spammy, these submissions happened over about 2 months.

So what was the result?

Turns out this is one for accepted wisdom – free directory submissions do work. On completion of the submission, after some fluctuations, the ranking settled at spot 5 and has been steady for a few weeks. I also saw an increase in ranking for some long tail terms, leading me to believe the overall page rank of the site increased.

I do still believe that at some point in the future, Google is likely to discount free directories – this is pure speculation and I have no data or  inside information to support that. The site is also ranked at spot 5 in Google Caffeine, suggesting any discounting of free directories is still a long way off. Until then, First Rate will continue to recommend this tactic to our clients.

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Christmas is a boom time for retailers and not even the dim economic outlook will be able to hold back the hoards of shoppers as the Christmas deadline approaches. So you may ask, where does the internet fit into a retailers marketing strategy?As we know, people use the internet to research goods before finally buying online or in many cases offline. So when is the best time to start and ramp up your online marketing activities?

As we can see from Google Search Insights the serious demand starts to pick up in October and accelerates right up until two weeks before Christmas where it levels off before coming to an abrupt stop as you would expect. This means that November often has the highest overall traffic volume for Christmas gifts.

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Search Engine Rankings and Online Marketing Success

The major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) regularly index websites and rank these according to their relevance and popularity to a specific topic. Being at the top of the first results page ensures maximum visibility and can attract a large number of visitors.

Search engine rankings are therefore a good measure to determine the online marketing success of a website. Traffic volume, website conversion rate and total revenue generated from search and associated ROI are other (important metrics for online success).

Credit Card Industry – Search Engine Rankings Analysis

First Rate has investigated the Ranking Based Reach ™ (RBR™) in Chart 1, of the main competitors in the Australian credit card industry against the top 20 industry keywords.

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As expected early last week, Microsoft announced the “New Live Search”. Todd, Oilman, posted live coverage, as did Vanessa Fox at Search Engine Land of the Searchification event at Microsoft. Here is what Microsoft explained is new:

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