ROI Web Solutions' Gail Parker said there are four factors that will determine the ROI you'll get from a keyword:
- The amount of competition for the top ten positions in search results
- The number of people who search on it (how much traffic can it bring you?)
- Whether the keyword is really relevant to your product or service
- Whether the keyword is one that people use when they're in a buying frame of mind
How much competition is there for the top ten positions?
Take a good look at the top ten sites currently ranking for a keyword you want. That's what you have to beat if you want to get traffic for that keyword. Beating the competition takes effort. The cost of that effort will affect your ROI.
"If the top 10 sites are winning their high rankings with just a few pages and a few incoming links, then it's a 'cheap' keyword," Parker says. "But they may be competing at the level of hundreds of pages and thousands of incoming links-- that would be a very expensive keyword because you will need to have hundreds of pages developed and acquire thousand of incoming links if you want a top ten ranking for that keyword."
How relevant is the keyword to your product or service?
Pick keywords that are as specific as possible. Parker pointed out that any business serving a geographic area needs to optimize phrases that include the locality, and use various sequences like "business broker in Miami" and "Miami business broker."
"Someone who breeds Yorkshire Terriers shouldn't waste their effort trying to optimize 'dog breeder,'" she said, "but rather 'dog breeder Yorkshire Terriers' and 'Yorkshire Terrier breeder.'"
Parker also warns against trying to optimize keywords that aren't in your actual page text. "You won't rank on the strength of META tags alone-- in fact, if you put a keyword in your META tags and don't use it in your body content you may even be penalized. So only pick keywords that you actually have in your content!"
How much traffic can the keyword bring?
You can get estimates of the number of times a keyword is searched by using two industry-standard keyword research tools, the Overture keyword suggestion tool and WordTracker (I mentioned these in Step 1 because they're also good for generating keyword ideas).
If you're trying to calculate your ROI, keep in mind that even if you have the No. 1 spot on Google, Yahoo and MSN, you still cannot expect to get 100 percent of this traffic. People will look at the title and description they see in the search results and decide whether your site is relevant to their needs or not. Still, the No. 1 position will usually get the lion's share of the traffic. It drops off from there within the top ten, and begins to drop radically for subsequent pages. If you're not in the top 30, your share of the traffic will be miniscule.
Is this a keyword someone uses when they're ready to buy?
If you're a business broker in Miami, someone who finds you with the keywords, "business valuation methods" or "articles on selling a business" probably won't become a customer, noted Parker, but one who types "businesses for sale in Miami" may contact you about one of your listings. Someone who types "business broker in Miami" will be a highly qualified lead and an excellent choice to optimize.
Also take into account the length of the buying cycle. A Performics (a division of DoubleClick) study, "Search Before Purchase," reported that consumers search for up to three months before making a purchase. They also do a lot of general searches, initially using generic terms. Performics CEO Cam Balzer added that consumers start by searching broadly, not keyed to brand.
"They narrow the search down to particular brands of products and location and will use that last search on a brand name to navigate to a specific online store," Balzer said.