An effective practical exercise to help you with keyword research for your website

I have just attended a day's training on SEO with Duncan Johnson
at www.yodelay.com.

Here's a snapshot of what we learned about how to find what key words people might be using to find our websites...

Google have revealed that...
Duncan told us the stunning fact that apparently 80% of all search queries entered into Google in any six month period are completely unique.

This is despite the fact that there are billions of searches every day.

"This amazing fact revealed by Google reveals what a huge challenge it is to work out the key words people might be using to find your website.," Duncan told the delegates.

"This is a staggering admission by Google and shows how individual we all are," he added.

However, keyword research is still the cornerstone of any SEO campaign. It helps establish what is on the mind of your target audience when they are looking to fulfil a particular need.

How to: keyword research exercise
The training delegates were a mixture of small and medium businesses based in Norfolk. Everything from pest killers and commercial kitchen installers to web developers and car hire brokers.

Duncan directed us in a highly effective practical exercise to get us thinking about keywords and SEO for our websites.

We paired up randomly. One of us briefly described our business then the other fired a load of search terms they might use to find your business. We scribbled them all down for two minutes then swopped.

We then moved round the room pairing up randomly again with other businesses until we had several pages of search terms.

What was immediately obvious when we debriefed was how different each person's search terms are for the same business.

It showed how individually people use Google.

Here are some of the search terms for my journalism, content consultant, PR business that people came up with...

• Partner A (male, a web developer) : blog consultant, content consultant, print media consultant, blog advisor

• Partner B (female, a car hire broker): blog advisor, content specialist, Norfolk content, content specialist in Norwich.

• Partner C (female, a commercial kitchen supplier): small business Norwich, content writing Norfolk, blogging Norfolk, recent examples of press releases, examples blog, step by step press releases.

• Partner D: (male, contemporary card publisher): access to editorial EDP, copywriting local press, advertising Norfolk.

• Partner E: (female, office supplies): help me write my blog, website content help, PR help.

And so it went on. Every partner individual in their search terms and dramatically different from the last. It became clear that people had pet ways of searching. They might use 'step by step' or 'help me find' and they would impose this on anything they were looking for.

It was a fascinating exercise and one you could easily do with friends, family, colleagues, a random group of people.

Duncan Johnson suggested that these search terms were some of the most valuable information we would take away from the training day.

Google+