The main focus of this blog is going to be industry education and analysis, and with that said I am kicking off my first series of posts.

The topic, keyword research.

I know, I know, this has been done. Again and again. There are a multitude of keyword research tools out there, and the real research seems to come into play when choosing one of the tools rather than your actual terms.

Trackers, finders, and tools galore.

This series of posts, which I will be calling Beyond Keyword Research, picks up where all of the keyword research tools and posts out their tend to leave off. What do you do after your site is built, after you have already started to build content? Do you let your site simply sit with your chosen terms? Sinking or swimming on the information provided by the tools you used?

I hope the answer is no, and even if it is yes, at this point I hope to give you additional tools and insight needed to make strong keyword choices as you move forward with your SEM plan.

The reason tweaking is needed, beyond keyword research, is that the importance of our optimization efforts is always conversion and subsequently cash. It is wonderful to rank #1 for a competitive term, but if your conversion rate for that term is below 1%, what is the point? Keyword analysis is something that should be a constant not simply a primer.

We will be taking a look at four ways to continue to enhance your keyword performance after your initial research:

1) Utilizing Analytics

2) Competitive Analysis

3) Heuristic Evaluations

4) User Based Testing

These tactics will help you to optimize your PPC campaigns, as well as help you chose keywords to center your SEO content creation plan around. Although some of these concepts may not lead you to the “more is better” approach to traffic that many of the current keyword tools use, they will lead you towards conversion driven data that will help you to make the most of your website and marketing efforts.

I also plan on bringing you insight from some of the industries top minds on how they approach keywords, beyond keyword research.

Any insight and comments are more than welcome, as I hope this turns into a topic that many voices can share experiences on.

The first step in our journey, a view of utilizing analytics to help solidify keyword choices, will begin on Wednesday May 7th, so subscribe to the rss feed now.