Finding Profit Driving Keywords to Optimize Your Online Store

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July 23, 2010
By the ZippyCart Ecommerce Software Reviews Content Team

Part 2 in a Series of SEO Tips for Ecommerce Success

A Quick Note: Ecommerce software companies love to advertise that they’re SEO friendly, which is why most ecommerce solutions provide a variety of tools for you to optimize your storefront.  Unfortunately, unless you’re an SEO expert, you may not even know how to harness the full potential of these tools.  In this series of SEO Tips for Ecommerce Success, I first spoke about choosing an SEO firm to drive traffic to your online store, which is a great way to get your site optimized if you don’t have the time to do it yourself and have the money to hire an expert.  In this economy though, most small businesses want to do as much as they can on their own before paying someone else to do it.  Because of this, the remainder of this series will focus on using a variety of free tools together with your ecommerce solution’s SEO features, to optimize your storefront for better rankings in search engines.  Expect these posts every Friday and don’t hesitate to suggest topics in the comments section.

Storefront Optimization Step 1: Ecommerce Keyword Research

Identifying Profit Driving Keywords

Before you can begin using all of the optimization features provided by your ecommerce platform (meta tags, title tags, rich text HTML pages, alt tags, optimized URLs), you need to identify what keywords (or search queries) you want to rank for in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.  There are two major types of keywords: Head terms and Tail terms.  Head terms generate a large amount of traffic and drive profit through this large amount of visitors, while tail terms generate only a small amount of traffic, but tend to convert better, thus also driving profit. You will find many articles about keyword research to find high traffic terms, but ecommerce keyword research is a different beast in many ways.  Ecommerce keyword research requires time, multiple tools, and an understanding of your target market.  On top of this, you will need to decide whether you want to target brand keywords, high converting tail terms, or build your own brand.

To start your keyword research, you first need to identify what types of keywords you are interested in.  A keyword can be a very powerful tool in your ecommerce arsenal because if you pick the right keywords to optimize your site for, you will likely see a very positive ROI.  Most people try to find keywords that have the highest search volume, but these are also often the most competitive keywords out there, which means that they are not the easiest to rank for in search engines.  Let your marketing strategy guide you through the process of choosing keywords.  For instance, if you have an online store that sells HDTVs, then you will want to find HDTV related keywords that market to an audience in search of this product.  Maybe your site is geared toward families looking for home entertainment, or maybe it’s focused on tech lovers who always want the latest in HDTV technology.  These two different audiences will be drawn to very different search queries.  For a family, maybe you choose a keyword like “home theater HDTVs” while a techie will probably search for a specific brand like “Samsung HDTVs”.  If, on the other hand, you have a specialty shop that sells homemade purses, you can start ranking for your brand name rather fast, since it’s unique to you.  Unfortunately, if you’re new, not many people will be searching for your brand name, so you will instead need to target more broad terms like “handmade purse.”

When determining what types of keywords you should target, also consider the customer base that you want to attract.  For instance, if you are targeting an older age range, you may want to focus on keyword phrases as opposed to broad single word queries.  Older generations are more used to typing questions into search engines or writing longer queries to ensure they get a good result, so targeting longer phrases or questions might be a good option for you.  If you typically sell HDTV’s and you want to attract this older audience, consider targeting a keyword phrase like “Where can I buy a Samsung HDTV?”  While these longer tail keywords may not have the traffic appeal of a broad term like “HDTV,” you have a better chance of ranking and an even better chance of attracting a customer who is ready to buy, thus making this tail term more profitable than a broad head term.

You should also consider the location of your customer base.  Are they national or local?  Maybe you are a personal trainer in LA and you have an online store to sell your training videos as well as classes and gift certificates.  In a case like this, you would be better off targeting very local keywords like “personal trainer Los Angeles.”  This will drive real customers to your site and provide more profit than fighting to rank for a broad term like “personal trainer.”

Working With Keyword Research Tools

Now that you have a better idea of what types of keywords you want to target, you need to take the step of researching keyword opportunities to find out what people are actually searching for.  There are a variety of keyword research tools out there, and all have varying results.  Luckily, Google provides many great keyword research tools for free.  Let’s focus on the following keyword research tools: the Google Keyword Tool, Google Insights, the Google Wonder Wheel, and SpyFu.  These 4 tools are decent on their own, but when used together can be very powerful.

The Google Keyword Tool
The Google Keyword Tool is the best place to start.  This tool is very easy to use.  Simply type in your website URL or some of the keywords you have brainstormed, and then hit submit.  Within seconds, Google will suggest a great deal of keywords for you to target when optimizing your storefront.  You can sort these keywords by search volume, competition, and more.  Just note that when you use this tool the search volume number encompasses all times the keyword was searched for and is just an estimate.  This does not tell you how much traffic you will receive based on search engine position, so expect to receive lower numbers than the search volume suggested, even if you rank number 1.  You can still use the search volume number as an indicator of high traffic terms versus low traffic, which will help you prioritize your keyword list.

Google Insights for Search
Google insights is a very powerful and intuitive tool.  With Google Insights you can list 5 keywords to start with and then view search volume for each keyword by region, country, and time frame.  If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see that related keywords will also be suggested when you submit your search.  You can also see top rising searches, which makes this highly insightful tool live up to its name.  Google Insights displays search volume on a 0-100 scale, with 100 being the most searched keywords.  To see the numbers associated to each keyword, you will need to be logged into a Google account.

The Google Wonder Wheel
The Google Wonder Wheel is meant to be a fun way to search, but is also a great way to research keywords.  To use the Wonder Wheel, start by doing a search in Google for one of the keywords that you have brainstormed.  Once in the Google search results page, click on “More Search Tools” in the left column (if it’s not already open).  Next, choose the Wonder Wheel.  In the middle of the page, you will see about 8 keywords in a wheel surrounding the keyword you searched.  As you click on  a keyword, more will be suggested, which you can add to your list.  If you need to prioritize them, go back to the Google Keyword Tool and enter them into the “words or phrases” box.  Hit submit and you will be able to see their associated search volume and level of competition to determine which ones are your best option to target.

SpyFu
SpyFu is a great tool to analyze your competition, but it’s also a great way to find out what keywords they target.  On the SpyFu home page, simply enter the domain name of your competition and hit search.  Within seconds, you will have an abundance of information related to your competitor, including the keywords that drive traffic to their site.  Add these keywords to your list.

Prioritizing Your Keywords

At this point, it’s possible that you will have a list of over 1000 keywords and prioritizing that list may seem daunting at best.  Even if you’re not comfortable in Excel, you can still bring this list into a spreadsheet and prioritize it with just a few steps.  First, create a column for “keywords” and list all of the keywords you just found.  Next, create a column for “search volume” and include the search volume of each keyword from the Google Keyword Tool.  Now it’s time to create a simple scoring algorithm.  Add the following columns to your spreadsheet: Competition (this is a 0-10 scale that you can also get from the Google Keyword Tool), Potential for Conversion, and Revenue per Conversion.  Once you have these columns, fill them out on a 0-10 scale.  For instance, if the keyword is a broad term like HDTV, it would earn a 0 for conversion, but if it’s a focused term like “Buy a Samsung HDTV,” it could get a 10 for conversion, as someone coming to your site from that keyword is very likely to buy.  Revenue per Conversion should also be on a 0-10 scale, with the keywords that target your highest priced items getting a high score in this part of the chart.  Next, create a “Search Score” column and score the search volume on a scale of 0-10 based on your own preference.

Once you have scored every keyword, create one final column: Average.  In this column, you will need to use the average command =AVERAGE(C2:F2) to get the average score.  Do this for every row.  Finally, sort your keywords by score and you will have a prioritized list.  Those who are more comfortable with Excel can also add a weight to each column to create a more intricate algorithm to sort by.

Now I Have My Ecommerce Keywords, What’s Next?

Believe it or not, finding your keywords is one of the biggest steps you can take towards optimization.  The next step requires implementing your keywords to ensure that your ecommerce site is well optimized.  Part 3 of this series will discuss implementing your keywords.  Until then, you have some homework to do: start researching profit driving keywords!

Posts in this Series
Part 1: Choosing an SEO Firm To Drive Traffic to Your Online Store
Part 2: Finding Profit Driving Keywords to Optimize Your Online Store
Part 3: Optimizing Your Online Storefront for Search Engines
Part 4: Understanding PageRank to Optimize Your Online Store
Part 5: 13 Ecommerce Link Building Tactics For Your Online Store