How to choose a Keyword

[ShootTokyo]

I searched around for this answer first but got information overload.

I write a photography blog and tonight I will put up a post of photography from around Jiyugaoka Train Station.   I will probably call the post Around Jiyugaoka Station or Around Jiyugaoka or something like that.  I like in Jiyugaoka (a part of Tokyo) so I have other posts that I have keyworded for Jiyugaoka.

What is the best way to determine what is the best derivative of 'Jiyugaoka Station' to choose for the best traffic?  I assume I could enter them in to manually into the Keyword Analysis but is there is easier way that would give recommendations?

[Chris.Menke]

You can use Google's adwords tool or keyword planner but they don't get granular enough to include "Jiyugaoka train station" keywords.  But what you do is organize several of your posts around the general "Jiyugaoka" topic and link to the general topic page from the train station, restaurants and maps pages (for example) with broad "Jiyugaoka"-type terms and from that category page, link out to the more specific pages with "Jiyugaoka train station" and "Jiyugaoka restaurants" anchor text.

It takes balancing to create your category pages at a high enough level that you don't end up with way too many categories that they become overwhelming to the user and not so many that they become too broad to rank for.  That's the tough part about keyword research.  Do broad research early on and map out your site's keyword direction to give yourself a strategic direction for your site.

[TomRayner]

Hi David

My first question would always be: what do you want the traffic to provide you? Is it merely for exposure to your work (which looks ace by the way), or do you want it specifically to convert?

If it's just to drive traffic and general awareness of the blog, it frees up the keyword choice.  If you want to get people to hire you on a freelance basis, then of course you need to think of the commercial viability of the keyword.  For instance, Jiyugaoka Station may not be too commercial, as you're not targeting people looking for a service, whereas "photographers near Jiyugaoka Station" (just as an example) would be.  This advice is a bit off topic, but always worth keeping in mind.

The keyword difficulty tool in Moz is a great tool, but I'd combine it with a few other tools.  Use the Google Keyword Tool to get a rough idea on monthly search volume for your selected keywords (remember to select [exact] match) and see which keywords have the most search volume - which in turn would probably mean more users to your site should you rank for the term.

The Keyword Tool will also give you a few keyword variations when you enter your keywords - these may also provide some good ideas of other keywords you could target.  Similarly, Ubersuggest is a great free tool that does the same sort of thing.

Once you have a list of keywords with decent search volume, then I'd use the Moz difficulty tool.  The tool will show you how strong the websites are ranking for that keyword and, somewhat proportionatly, you'll get some idea of how much SEO effort you'd need to do to overtake them.  It might be the case that one keyword has a search volume of 800 per month, but looks quite difficult to rank, whereas a 450 per month term looks very easy indeed.  In this case, based on your time, knowledge and budget, you can work out which keyword you'd be better off optimising for.

Hope this helps in some way and if you have any interest I wrote a blog post on a relatively similar subject last week: www.sowhatmedia.co.uk/small-traffic-big-business/

[ShootTokyo]

Great responses guys.

Tom - Thanks for the very complete answer.  What I am looking to do is drive exposure for my blog.  I am not really interested in commercial work as a photographer but want to continue to drive a lot of traffic to my blog.   Great article on your site by the way.