Selecting Keywords for Your Website

2. Index Cards

Take a stack of 3x5 index cards and write a specific keyword phrase on each one. (If you find similar keyword phrases that are plural/singular or have all of the same keywords that were jumbled,then write them all on the same card.All you have to do then is choose the one with the 'best fit' for your site.

Lay down your Tier 1 keywordcard, then your cards with Tier 2 keyword phrases on them below the Tier 1 card. Next, lay out your cards with potential Tier 3 keyword phrases "beneath" each Tier 2 card, spreading them out as much as possible so that you can see them. This makes it easy to move potential Tier 3 pages from one Tier 2 to another, to help decide the 'best fit'.

**TIP-This exercise can be done by one Tier 2 section at a time, or to see the bigger picture, lay out your Tier 1, and then Tier 2's with possible Tier 3's underneath- you might just need a large floor or table space to get the full picture!

3. Colour Coding

You will need at least 5-6 different coloured textas/pencils for this exercise.

Firstly print off your Master Keyword List with your keywords listed in order of Demand (highest first). To do this click on the Demand button in your MKL. This will automatically order you keywords in order of highest demand, all the way down to lowest demand.

Scroll down to the bottom ofyour MKL page and click on the Export All button. This will export your list (in this order) to a CSV file which can then be printed off for you to work from. Your Concept Keyword (Tier 1 keyword) will be somewhere near the top of your list. (It generally will have demand of greater than 10,000).

Below this will be a series of keywords that should fit what you want to be your Tier 2 pages. These keywords will generally have demand in the high 100's or into the 1000's and will have other pages (your Tier 3's) that will naturally fit underneath them.

Mark each potential Tier 2 in a particular colour, then scroll down the page and mark keywords that would naturally fit underneath this Tier 2, in the same colour. As you work through this process you will start to get a feel for how your keywords group together, more or less into sets- eg a Tier 2 and it's related Tier 3 pages.

There will be some keywords that don't seem to fit anywhere, and some that you are not sure if you want to write about just yet. Don't worry about these, in time they will slot their way into the structure of your website. Once you have completed this exercise you can move on to Mapping It Out (see below),to visually see how each set of keywords fits together.

**TIP- Set up a key on your pages with each colour and its Tier 2 page beside it so that you have a quick reference guide. From personal experience, it's not always safe to rely on your memory!

4. Map It Out

This method is similar to using index cards, but keeps your keywords together on A4 (or A3) pages. It works best with one Tier 2 subject on each page, with the Tier 3's slotted in below.

Firstly you need to select your Tier 2 subject and the potential keywords that will be used for this page. Write these keywords at the top of your page (lay your page in landscape format to give you the maximum width).

Underneath your Tier 2 - write down the potential keywords for Tier 3 pages. Any keywords that are very similar can be grouped together, as you will generally choose the best one of these to write about and leave the rest. Each of these pages can be used to check off pages as you write them, and act as a 'to do' list of pages that are next in line for you to write. I use a highlighter to select the keywords that I have selected to use for my page and then put a big tick next to each one as I complete it.