What We Do - Keyword Phrase Analysis

What We Do

The basic goal of a keyword analysis is to get you optimized and high on the search engine for the search terms the user is most likely to use. This page defines the largely automated process using tools in our OPM001 service.

First, let's clarify two definitions:

Keyword - a word (or maybe two) used to clarify what a Web page is all about. If you are selling a farm, for example, you might use the keywords "farm", "for sale" and "Portland." The words are generic. Trying to use them to describe your web page to a search engine would get a searcher using the same keywords large number of returns, and make it nearly impossible for the searcher to find what they really need as well as making it impossible for you to get you a good position in what is returned.

Keyword Phrase - a short phrase of three to five keywords that uniquely describes a web page as much as possible. For example, "Portland farm for sale." You want phrases that are used often with very few competing web sites.

We start by taking the sample keywords you give us. We ake each of these in turn and query two major search engines, taking the top two hundred pages that are returned. From these, we use the metatags of these pages to define additional keywords. Our tools return approximately 300 keywords, sorted in descending order as to how often they appeared in the metatags. This is an automated brainstorming process, trying to find words that are similar to the keywords you used. The keywords are fairly generic. For "farms", for example, you will see "ranches" returned as well as "farms." This list is NOT dependent upon what people are using in searching the Internet. It's based on what keywords other people are using in their keyword phrases of their metatags on these other web pages.

Now we need to see how popular these keywords are in searches. More exactly, we need to see how popular the keyword is used in various keyword phrases by people searching the database. Even if the keyword or keyword phrase is good, if no one is using it for searching it doesn't do you any good. We select various keywords that we think are good, and then go into a database of metacrawler queries made during the last two months. (A metacrawler is a search engine that queries multiple search engines.) The system returns to us the keyword search phrase used and the number of times the phrase was used in searching. We also get a prediction of the traffic for that keyword phrase over the next 24 hours. We now have a keyword phrase list, with the list in descending order based on the frequency of how often the phrase is used in searching the database. From this keyword phrase list we select anywhere from maybe ten to up to a hundred phrases for analysis.

We now have a list of hot keyword phrases you can use that are very popular in searching the metacrawler database. What we don't have, however, is how many web sites are competing for hits with each of these phrases. You want a keyword phrase that is very popular but has few competing web sites. We then take each keyword phrase in turn and, using up to two search engines, find the number of competing web sites, the number of times that phrase has been used in the last two months, and the predicted viewing of your site in the next 24 hours if you are on page one of this search engine. You can decide which engines to use for this.

You also get a KEI rating for each keyword phrase. This is a value calculated by a special algorithm that measures the ratio of the keyword phrase popularity to the number of competing web sites. You want a phrase with a high KEI - phrase this is very popular in searching with few competing web sites. The final keyword phrase list is printed in descending KEI order, with the data on the number of competing sites and predicted hits.

We also give you strategic information on how to use your keywords on your Web page for getting a competitive advantage on those other sites using your keyword phrases. We also tell you key strategies for getting high on the search engines. Finally, we tell you how to use those keyword phrases and keywords that are left over. We also tell you how to improve your click-through; that is, getting people who see you in the search engines to click over to your site.

Generally we can return the results in one or two business days when processing a single page.