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I always start my keyword research in the same fashion. I look over the client’s website and other collateral to get a basic understanding of what the client offers in the way of products or services. I ask the client what they believe people are using to find their product or services. I then ask them what they would like people to find their product or services under. Exit stage left for now.

Now comes research time in the mad scientist’s laboratory. Okay – so it’s more like a workstation at a desk in my office. Picking the right keywords involves weighing several factors. The keywords must be relevant to the products/services offered and one should also be cognizant of geographic location (mold vs. mould and also targeting geographic areas ie: Seattle Tea Distributor), should it apply, lateral search terms (a tea merchant would benefit from terms such as “Earl Gray”, and “loose tea”), and misspellings. For clients who are on the edge of a new technology or product, I find it prudent to invest in specific ugly ducklings before they become swans to stake ground before the internet starts buzzing with these new terms and everyone is rushing for prime real estate. I also do research on whether people tend to search for a phrase using singular or plural variations (tea vs. teas), the order which people search for words (buy chai tea vs. chai tea buy), and the vocabulary which trends show users to search (buy loose tea vs. purchase loose tea).

Another important factor is competition. If you are trying to compete in a market that is dominated by big-name players who have a long-standing history on the web, and subsequently a lot of inbound links assisting their maintaining high rankings, consider more specific phrases that relate directly to your products and services. Where the broad term “tea” has a competition of over 60M and is dominated by established tea companies, a less established tea merchant may want to work on optimizing for wholesale tea (440K) or buy tea wholesale (265K) which will allow them to not only reap the benefits of users who are further along in their research and purposely narrowing their focus but also allow them to increase business while their link strength improves.

Finally, after the keywords have been selected and the SEO campaign is underway, it is vital to assess the successes of the selected keywords and make adjustments as needed. This can take the form of choosing different keywords, adding copy to the site to emphasize current keywords or, as is usually the case for me, both.

There is no such thing as being too thorough in your initial research, or too mindful of the post-implementation analysis. As search trends change, new words enter our vocabulary catalog (ask your grandparents/parents what Apple Widgets or PSP wallpapers are) and the competition grows, staying ahead is the name of the game.