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
-
Inconsistent Keyword Search Volume & Difficulty Across Tools (e.g., Moz, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Semrush)
Hi there, Moz Community! I'm reaching out for some guidance on keyword research discrepancies. I'm currently targeting the keyword "sui gas bill" for my blog, sngplbill, which focuses on information related to Sui gas bills. I've used several keyword research tools, including Moz, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Semrush, and each platform provides different search volume and keyword difficulty scores: Moz: No search volume data, Keyword Difficulty (KD) 24
Keyword Research | | Faizali.786
Google Keyword Planner: Search volume 100k-1M, Difficulty (Low)
Semrush: Search volume 90k, KD 31
Ahrefs: KD 1 (Very Easy)
These varying results are causing some confusion. Ideally, I'd like to understand which platform offers the most reliable data for search volume and keyword difficulty. Here are some additional details that might be helpful: My target location: Pakistan My Questions: What factors might contribute to these discrepancies in keyword data across different tools?
Considering my niche (Sui gas bill information in Pakistan), which platform would you recommend for the most accurate search volume and keyword difficulty estimates?
Are there any additional factors to consider beyond search volume and keyword difficulty when selecting keywords for content strategy?
Any insights you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Capture sui gas bill semrush.PNG Capture moz sui gas bill.PNG Capture gkp sui gas bill.PNG Capture ahref sui gas bill.PNG
Thanks,0 -
A Solution to Keywords Being Grouped in Google Keyword Planner
Hi guys, I am trying to get search traffic for a list of keywords which I put together a few years ago for one of my clients, this was before Google made changes to their Keyword Planner. When I am adding the list into Google Keyword Planner it is "grouping" a number of the keywords/phrases together, and therefore removing 13 of the keywords from the original list of 59 keywords. Is there a way around this so I can get search volume for the original list, and not the cut down one? I am specifically using Google Keyword Planner as I want to get search volume for a number of specific locations in the UK. Any comments/feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! Jack. I19Op
Keyword Research | | ChemistryMarketing1 -
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 -
Setting Up a Keyword Matrix
Greetings MOZ community!! My real estate web site contains about 500 pages with perhaps 70 pages targeting low volume, somewhat valuable but not very competitive keywords. Three to four URLs target very competitive terms. The following terms are among the most valuable: New York City office space,
Keyword Research | | Kingalan1
New York office space,
Manhattan office space,
NYC office space Such variants as: Office space in New York City,
Office space in New York,
Office space in Manhattan,
Office space in NYC
ETCETERA convert really well How would I match different terms to different URLs? For example I have just re-written the following two critical URLs: www.nyc-officespace-leader.com (home page)
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/office-space (product page) Would it make sense to use "Manhattan office space" and variants on the home page while excluding "New York City office space" variants? At the same time I would use "New York City office space" variants on the "office-space" product page while excluding all mention of "Manhattan office space". Is this logical and does it conform to SEO best practices? For the "NYC office space" terms I would add them to http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings. This URL has almost no text but a strong potential to rent because of a high number of incoming internal links. Is this approach sensible? In general what measures should I take to prevent URLs from competing for the same keywords? Also, is there a software package or tools that I can use to come up with keyword variants? As a non SEO professional, can I create my own keyword matrix or is this really in the realm of a professional SEO consultant? Thanks, Alan0 -
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 -
How do I find out what low-volume keywords are best to target?
Since many of our products and services are purpose-built for a niche community, I find that many of the keywords I am researching are all low-volume. Data on the Keyword Difficulty Tool show '0' under Bing Search Volume (exact match). I know what my competitors are targeting based on their title tags and web content, but I'm not sure if they did their keyword research homework, so I don't want to assume. Is there any other way to determine which keywords I should be targeting?
Keyword Research | | ULCRobotics0 -
Ignore keywords that have no data in the Google Keyword Tool?
Hello, There are some keywords that have no monthly search data in the Google Keyword Tool. In many cases, this is because there have been very few searches for the keyword. Would you recommend focusing on other keywords that do have search data in the Google Keyword Tool? Perhaps focusing too far out on the long tail of search results can be less productive than focusing on keywords that have proven that at least some people care about them. What do you think? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | nyc-seo0 -
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