Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Finding the best of 100's of keywords?
-
Have an online e-commerce store and need to start on keyword research. There is a round 1000 products, not very many all things considered but a very big job to do manually.
Do you know any tools that could speed it up?
or
Process/method that could help?
Thanks
-
Hello,
To answer your question in short, there isn't really a way to "speed up" this process, but that shouldn't be the goal in the first place. Keyword research is the foundation upon which you build your rankings, so you should really be prepared to put some serious thought into it.
In terms of making the process more effective, however, there are a few tactics I have used which have helped me. Feel free to follow this checklist:
- Assess your product categories
Presumably you are not dealing with 1000 different products from unique niches. Start by assigning each of these products to a category and using that category as a landing page. Then you can research each category for relevant keywords.
- Assign keywords for each category
I would take no more than 10-20 keywords for each category unless the products you are selling are well-known (and therefore, well-searched). No e-commerce site can rank first for every item they carry.
- Determine the ranking difficulty of your chosen keywords
I use a national keyword checking tool called Authority Metrics (www.authoritymetrics.com) for national keyword research. It shows you organic competition levels and PPC costs along with national monthly searches based on multiple countries. It is not particularly useful for local clients, but as an e-commerce website, I doubt this will impact you. In any case, it will give you more information than Google's Keyword Planner Tool.
- Create your sitemap/category pages
This should be done after you have determined what keywords you can/will be ranking for. My strategy tends to involve a 2-pronged approach where I use 1 sales funnel for low-hanging fruit (long-tail keywords or unique products) and another for large-scale keywords which will take time to rank. This allows you small-scale income very quickly, while also allowing you to build your site organically.
- Create content for each category, and your top-sellers
Obviously you need quality content to rank. I like to focus on a percentage of products that I feel have the best chance of success. There is no hard rule about this, but I typically go for about 5% of my overall product list. Generally speaking, 10% of your products will yield 75% of your overall sales. Find the balancing point between your keyword's monthly searches and the ROI you stand to gain from ranking each of these products.
This has gone beyond keyword research and into sales and CRO, but I hope it helps to give you a helpful outline of my approach to the e-commerce landscape. This process will put you in good shape for establishing your site and getting purchases.
Feel free to follow up with me if you have further questions.
All the best,
Rob
-
Hi,
I'm not aware of any tools which can automate this, but I can share my usual process with you. When I'm approaching a new E-Commerce store's keyword research, I'll usually create a prioritised list of the top pages on site, based on the client's goals, and current top page data. Ideally each product page will have the target keyword in the title- though this isn't always the case- so I'd go through based on popularity of products, and best margins, to ensure the keywords are good, and the descriptions are unique and optimised. Are the products already generating sales, or are they sold elsewhere? Could you get a list of the best sellers from other platforms?
I'll usually make a prioritised list of pages in Excel, usually starting with the homepage, then categories, then sub categories and products, to write optimised descriptions & meta data. It can be a huge job- I have one client with over 20,000 products and nearly 3,000 categories for example- but I haven't found a way to really automate this process yet!
Definitely keen to hear how other SEOs respond to this, it's a very interesting question.
Hope this helps,
Zoe
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Minor languages keyword research
Hello, I am in charge of doing a keyword research for several small countries in Europe, namely Hungary, Estonia and Latvia.
Keyword Research | | Lvet
I normally use the Keyword planner for Google Ads, but for Hungarian, Estonian and Latvian this tools seems to find no results for the keywords related to my websites. For example, in Hungarian the keyword "ajak toltoanyagok" ("lip fillers" in English) doesn't give any results (and yes, I am targeting my searches to Hungary and Hungarian). I have the same problems with Latvian and Estonian. Is there another tool that I could use and that could give me better results? Help! Cheers Luca rONwtZt0 -
How to Find a Competitor's Target Keyword for a Particular Webpage
I understand how to do basic keyword research and how to review a competitor's code (meta tags, etc.). But what is the best method for finding out what a competitor's target keyword is for a particular web page? For example, the URL www.example.com/about-us, what is the best method for finding out what their target keyword is? I have been using a keyword density tool to run the URLs and find the keyword or phase that appears most often but would think there is a better way?
Keyword Research | | rx3000 -
Keyword Themes - What's in a theme?
I recently read the Moz guide for "How To Rank - 25 Step SEO Master Blue Print" and had a question on keyword themes. What is considered a theme? Is there a recommended number of keywords in a theme? For example, if my site is for listing and selling cars, would the following terms fit within the same "car" theme or should the terms be broken out by "cars general" / "car locations" / "car types"? Cars Cars for sale in new york Ford Explorer for sale
Keyword Research | | Emily_A0 -
How Do You Find the Total Search Volume for an Industry?
Currently my company is working on trying to find the total search volume (read: search potential) for our industry, but aren't sure how best to go about it. Obviously GWT data and Keyword Planner data came to mind, but those are not all encompassing (at least we don't think they are) -- GWT only has data for terms you rank for and the Keyword Planner only gives you volume if you already know the queries. Is there some quick and easy way to go about finding this that we haven't thought of? One thing to note is that our business is nationwide, meaning that all our terms will have a geo-identifier associated with them for each location i.e. [city] + search term -- this just makes things even more complicated. Any advice on to approach would be much appreciated!
Keyword Research | | sparefoot0 -
Keyword ranking by word order
If we have a keyword with 2 words like "SSL Audit". Will it rank in the same position the other way "Audit SSL" ?
Keyword Research | | Cistrust.com0 -
Keyword research tools
So I went to a panel a while back that said Wordtracker is basically useless. I'm not using it as an end-all, be-all, but more for insights and context. Do you agree with that statement? The hosting company provides a keyword research tool, so I wasn't sure how seriously to take it. Have you guys been using Bing for the search data previously provided by Google's Keyword Research Tool? Do you find that to be a viable resource? Thanks.
Keyword Research | | SSFCU0 -
Keywords for multi service business?
New to this so bear with, I am a TV aerial, satellite, CCTV, Door entry, Access Control, Telephone repair engineer. I have one seperate page for each of the installations I carry out as well as the basic home, about, areas, faqs and so on. My question is do i have one key phrase for each of the services i cover or do i just relate all the keywords from that service into the keywords tag ie, META name=keywords content="Digial aerials Stockport,digital aerials Manchester,aerials Stockport,aerials Manchester,aerial repairs Stockport,aerial repairs Manchester,digital,aerial,tv,tv aerials Manchester,tv aerials Stockport,arials,arial,aerial installer,aerial installations,aeril installation,Stockport,Manchester ,"> That is what i have fro Tv aerial installation, Should i make landing pages for each phrase for each service or stick to one page? www.redvalecommunications.co.uk is the site if you want to take a look thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | redvalecomms0 -
Keyword Difficulty Score Assesment
What is a good keyword difficulty score to pursue when deciding which keywords to try and rank on? I'm in a very competitive field and I am currently in the process of doing keyword research to look for the low hanging fruit.
Keyword Research | | 13375auc30