Choosing Keywords – Quality vs. Quantity

MoreVisibility - February 15, 2007

When I start new campaigns for clients and perform the keyword analysis for a specific web site, I often get the common question: How many keywords should I use? Selecting a large quantity of keywords may result in more impressions, but if the keywords don’t accurately describe what the company offers, they may be doing more harm than good. One example would be a consulting firm that helps businesses to improve their performance. The word “improve business performance” appears on the site many times and is very relevant to what the firm offers. This keyword may get a lot of clicks but the question is whether searchers are really looking to improve their business performance with a firm. It’s possible that they may be looking to read about it or benchmark for their business, or they could be looking for free ideas and articles; not necessarily willing to pay a firm to help them. As an advertiser, put yourself in the place of the person that needs your service. What would you type in a search engine in order to find a business consulting firm?

You’d probably type “business consulting firms” or even “business consultant”. In order to build a successful campaign, think about keywords that will generate leads and convert to sales. Ultimately, you should consider the goals of your site. If your website is e-commerce driven, choosing a large quantity of keywords may increase impressions but doesn’t necessarily equate to generating conversions. Therefore the focus should be on quality keywords. If however, the purpose of your website is to provide information, then the more impressions the better.