My friend Ashley Barnes recently contacted me through social media and asked for advice on how to do keyword research. She is launching a tourism business in Buenos Aires and knows that "this online marketing thing is important, but don't know where to start." Many small and medium size businesses are in the same boat as Ashley... they know that keyword research is important but have no idea where to start.
I have decided to help the people in the boat of keyword research confusion. I feel that the best way to explain this process is through example. So I have taken on the task of completing keyword research for Ashley's brand new website, www.entreargentinatours.com and am outlining the steps below. Please use this as a reference for your own keyword discovery.
The first step in Keyword Research is Keyword Discovery, and the best way to start your discovery is to brainstorm all of the possible words a person might use to find your site through a search engine.
I asked Ashley to start the brainstorming process by compiling as many keywords as she could think of for her business. I told her to think of any keywords that her customers might type into a search engine to find her site. Remember that her site is brand new, so she has no analytical data to interpret her top performing keywords. If you are reading this article and have not started keyword research for your website, I encourage you to go ahead and brainstorm your own list.
This is the initial list Ashley sent me:
Package tours Argentina |
Customized tours Buenos Aires and Argentina |
Special interest tours |
Art, Wine, and Food tours |
socially conscience tourism |
Argentina travel |
Mendoza |
Salta |
Buenos Aires |
Bariloche |
Vineyards |
Restaurants |
Local Artist |
Palermo |
Boutique hotels |
Responsible Tourism |
support local businesses |
create your own tour |
wine country |
Hotels |
guided tours |
transportation |
local cuisine and restaurants |
Latin America tours |
This list is an OK start, but needed a little bit of help before starting. Notice terms like “Art, Wine, and Food tours”. This term is way too broad and would do no help for her without some focus. This term should be expanded to: “Beunos Aires Art Tours” “Beunos Aires Wine Tours” “Beunos Aires Food Tours”. Also terms like "Mendoza" should be more specific like "Mendoza tours".
Take a look at your own keyword list. Do you have any broad terms that can be more focused?
I revised Ashley’s initial list to resolve these terms and came up with this list:
Package tours Argentina |
Package tours Buenos Aires |
Customized tours Buenos Aires Argentina |
Customized tours Argentina |
Special interest tours |
socially conscience tourism |
Argentina travel |
Buenos Aires travel |
Mendoza tours |
Salta tours |
Buenos Aires tours |
Argentina tours |
Bariloche |
Buenos Aires Vineyards |
Buenos Aires Restaurants |
Beunos Aires Local Artist |
Argentina Vineyards |
Argentina Restaurants |
Argentina Local Artist |
Palermo |
Boutique hotels |
Responsible Tourism |
support local Buenos Aires businesses |
Buenos Aires create your own tour |
Buenos Aires wine country |
Buenos Aires Hotels |
Buenos Aires guided tours |
Buenos Aires transportation |
Buenos Aires local cuisine and restaurants |
support local Argentina businesses |
Argentina create your own tour |
Argentina wine country |
Argentina Hotels |
Argentina guided tours |
Argentina transportation |
Argentina local cuisine and restaurants |
Latin America tours |
Buenos Aires Art Tours |
Buenos Aires Food Tours |
Buenos Aires Wine Tours |
Buenos Aires Art Tour |
Buenos Aires Food Tour |
Buenos Aires Wine Tour |
Argentina Art Tours |
Argentina Food Tours |
Argentina Wine Tours |
Argentina Art Tour |
Argentina Food Tour |
Argentina Wine Tour |
This list is not perfect, but good enough for us to start utilizing web tools for keyword discovery. Notice how our keyword list just went from 25 to 50 just by focusing search terms to become more specific. I encourage you to do the same before utilizing web tools for optimal results.
Continue reading Part 2 of Exotic Keyword Research focusing on Utilizing Keyword Discovery Tools to find out what to do next!