As more PR and marketing folks integrate Internet search marketing and organic search optimization into their campaigns, we see many companies make a mistake with the critical first step in the process: keyword research.

We are talking about the tendency on both the agency and client side to skip keyword due diligence. This has as much to do with ingrained habits and process as anything. People are busy. They may not have access to or know how to use a keyword research program like Wordtracker. Or they may just stick with the terms and language they use internally.Or they may just not want to pay for it.  They do the best they can and presume which keywords are best. If your company is in the automotive business, this could mean competing on a hot topic like ”Toyota Prius,” or “hybrid cars.” If you’re a sports retailer, it could be ”best running shoes,” or “cheap running shoes.” You want to sell more shoes, right?

Avoid overly competitive keywords

Here is one of our cardinal SEO rules: do your due diligence, and don’t make your list of keywords based solely on your internal marketing priorities, product catalog and assumptions about what is popular.

As with other types of marketing, how people actually behave – or in this case, search – is very different from what is imagined in corporate cubicles and conference rooms. Take the term “social media marketing agencies,” which hundreds of online firms are doubtlessly competing for. A high-value term, yes? Dig deeper and you’ll see, surprisingly, that relatively few people are searching for it.

The key is to focus on those keywords with high potential. Here are the two most important things to keep in mind when doing keyword research:

1. How many people are actually searching for the term? You will be surprised at what words and phrases related to your industry get little traffic. And just because people are searching for a term doesn’t mean they’ll click on it. You have to look for high-traffic, high-value keywords. A tool like Market Samurai is a great way to determine both value and traffic.
2. How many companies are competing for the term? There are plenty of high-traffic keywords, such as “Toyota Prius.” The question then becomes whether you can compete for them.  Generally, you want to compete for those terms that have well under 100,000 competing pages, at least starting out. More than eight million Web pages are competing for the term “Toyota Prius.” Steep competition, and unlikely to net any returns.

We’ve attended our share of the many workshops and webinars about the importance of keywords and how to go about identifying them. We usually come away unsatisfied with the little attention given to process and making sure that keywords are indeed relevant. It doesn’t matter how many times you put them in a news release. If no one is searching for your terms, or if there is too much competition for your terms, no will discover your content.

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