Using Adwords to determine effective SEO keywords

[Wasabii]

Hello,

My name is Mitchell and I'm new to the MOZ community and to the SEO field.

I just recently launched an e-commerce website that sells refurbished laptops and computers and I have been researching ways to bring traffic and sales to our website.

I understand that the first step to building an effective SEO campaign is to determine effective keywords to build from: targeted traffic + good volume.I've used several online tools to find relevant keywords and it appears that most of the relevant keywords are already Highly competitive and the first 2 Google pages are usually taken over by big name brands.I understand that I need to find low competition long tail keywords and start my way up from there.Assuming that I find 5-10 long tail keywords with low competition and decent search volume, here are my questions:- Should I test these long tail keywords with Google Adwords to find out if they convert well BEFORE I optimize my website for them?- Since I will be having several different long tail keywords, do I need to have a separate webpage on my site for each? (I believe that it's suggested to have one page per keyword, maximum 2)- If yes, does that mean that each long tail keyword needs to have it's own back links to bring in traffic?- Should I optimize my homepage for a long tail keyword as well? or should I optimize it for the more broader keywords and create sub-pages for the long tail keywords?-  One of my site's main products is a very popular item and has high competition and search volume. Would it make sense to purchase a domain name that spells out the item (ej. HP-Pavillion-DV6.com) and publish reviews, specs and information about the item there (using a blogging service like Tumbler or Wordpress)? Or redirect the domain name to a page on my site with that information? Or just create a page on my site with that information and create back-links to it?

Thanks in advance for your taking the time to respond and for your invaluable feedback.

Respectfully,

Mitchell.

[Wasabii]

What do you suggest then? instead of the 1-2 keywords per page approach?

[Wasabii]

Thanks for the tips on creating the AdWords campaign and for confirming the soundness of this idea. Since I'm going to have to use AdWords anyway to bring in traffic, at least in the beginning, might as well find out what works well and use that to target for organic searches as well.

I'll definitely checkout LongTailPro and some others have also suggested UbberSuggest.

[Wasabii]

Thanks for the great feedback! This definitely sets me on the right path.

I think that I will keep it simple and use the blog on my website to create the content related to the long tail keywords. One or more quality blog posts for each keyword and then submit the blog posts to online article directories or other blogs.

How does that sound?

[MikeTek]

seovp's advise is spot-on here.

I'd just add that "1-2 keywords per page" is really obsolete advice at this point, unfortunately. Google is doing a better job of every day of understanding synonyms and semantics and creating associations between language, pages and entities - this kind of granular keyword targeting is less impactful every day and also could flag you up for a Panda penalty.

You are entering a saturated market for sure. Outside of SEO, I'd be investing in creative ways to sell your products as well as get attention around your brand. Even in the long tail, you will find the competition fierce for these products, so you'll really have to find a unique way of doing things to get initial attention with a smart partnerships and promotions plan, which will translate into the links/shares/traffic that send the right signals to Google and raise your rankings across the board.

Best of Luck,
Mike

[StreamlineMetrics]

I'm a big fan of testing keywords in AdWords before choosing the ones you want to use for SEO. You can set up the AdWords campaign today and get actual data on the number of impressions (number of times the keyword is searched), CTR and conversions generated by each keyword in only a few hours. I'm not sure how familiar you are with AdWords but it is absolutely critical that the campaigns be set up correctly from the get-go, otherwise you will get inaccurate data and may drain your budget quite quickly.

Since your goal is to test the keywords for SEO, make sure you are only using [Exact Match] keywords. And it is probably wise to uncheck the option to "Include plurals, misspellings, and other close variants."

Also, make sure you are not opted into the Display Network but rather just the Search Network (ideally just Google, not the search partners as well).

Finally, I'd suggest using a tool called LongTailPro to instantly come up with thousands of long tail keywords that you might not have considered yet. You can sort/filter by CPC, advertiser competition, organic competition, keyword competitiveness, search volume, etc. It gets the keyword data from Google and also uses the Moz API to check organic competition. It's definitely my favorite keyword research tool and one that I don't ever really see talked about on Moz.

[seovp]

With the majority of these techniques you're asking for trouble as they revolve around old school SEO.

Since I will be having several different long tail keywords, do I need to have a separate webpage on my site for each?

• Yes it will help having a separate page per keyword as long as the keywords are varied enough, relevant, and you have enough unique content to justify a page.

If yes, does that mean that each long tail keyword needs to have it's own back links to bring in traffic?

• Having QUALITY backlinks will always help you to rank, but they need to be relevant and natural. Going out and buying links with keyword rich anchor text will only lead to a penalty.

Should I optimize my homepage for a long tail keyword as well? or should I optimize it for the more broader keywords and create sub-pages for the long tail keywords?

• As long as your site is well structured and written it should naturally be optimized for a couple of key terms and longer tail keywords will usually be picked up for your more specific sub sections e.g.

Home page - Refurbished Laptops
Sub - Lightweight Refurbished Laptops
Sub - Refurbished desktop computers

Just don't OVER optimize!

One of my site's main products is a very popular item and has high competition and search volume. Would it make sense to purchase a domain name that spells out the item (ej. HP-Pavillion-DV6.com) and publish reviews, specs and information about the item there (using a blogging service like Tumbler or Wordpress)?

• I'd recommend not to create an exact match url, it would be better to create a product page off your main url. But a blog is always good to help promote your site and create some unique and shareable content.

[LesleyPaone]

I imagine that other people have better answers than me, but I am going to put my 2cents in. As far as e-commerce comes you are really limited with your SEO. In my opinion it is the most limited market. Longtail keywords are a tough market and are tough to incorporate into product pages. Say you are selling a XYZ brand laptop with a module number of 123456, how do you h1 tag that into a long tail keyword? The best practice is to h1 the product name with maybe the model number depending on the product (yours I would recommend having the number). There are other on page factors you could use that might work well, but my strategy for ecommerce sites is totally different as compared to regular sites that do not sell products.

I am in the process of trying to write a pretty good post about ecommerce SEO that I hope wil make it to youmoz. In the mean time I am doing an interview series that should start on monday about seo for ecommerce. I have interviewed 3 of the top people in the SEO industry about how they would handle ecommerce sites. I will link back here once the first interview runs.