Keywords (and keyphrases) are the words that potential visitors to your web site use for when searching on the internet. For example, when a user is looking to find a crecge, they might simply type “creche” or “Dublin creche” into Google (or their favourite search engine, the other main ones being Yahoo! and Bing). These are search terms (or keywords).

Initial activities in any SEO campaign are to ensure that we find out what keywords are used by people to find what you have to offer.  We do this by analysing your current web searches, competitive analysis, gathering keywords from competitive web sites and by getting a feel for what you believe are the correct terms.  What we will then do is, using these keywords, and terms, interrogate the main search engines (Google, followed by Yahoo and Microsoft’s Live) to find out what keywords people REALLY use when searching for the type of services that you deliver.

We would normally come up with a few hundred keywords that we could use.  We will then, in conjunction with you, agree the top 6-8 primary keywords.  We then start to incorporate these main keywords into the top levels of the web site. Later, we will use the remaining keywords in a Search Engine Marketing Campaign.

Regarding the creche example, the term “child care” is 5 times more searched than “creche”. “Creches” (the plural) is 6 times less searched than creche. As a consequence, it is important that you get your keywords assessed as they are linked to the volume and traffic they may generate to your site.