Deciding Which Keyphrases in Log Stats to Focus On

How to choose which keywords or phrases might benefit from investigation

[bouncybunny]

I have read much on WW and other places about checking out incoming search engine key-phrases in web site stats and then investigating whether it is worth building relevant content around them.

But I'm still intrigued as to what criteria people use when choosing to do this. How low down the stats do you go when looking at keyphrases?

Do you build on the top ten phrases, or is it safe to assume that this is already saturated on your site?

How about those that only show up 3 or 4 times? Are they worth pursuing, or are they freak aberrations that you have no hope of competing with other sites for?

Do you mix and match and build new phrases out of several 'similar' keywords and then build an article around them?

Obviously, there is no one method of doing this, but I'm interested in how other webmasters go about drilling down into their incoming keyphrase logs and different methods on how best to make use of this information.

[tangor]

I use several methods. Frequency, of course, is top. Generally take a month's worth of keywords from raw logs and parse for phrases and individual words. Pivot tables work real well in analyzing the data. Sometimes improvements can be made, sometimes nothing seems to change.

[bouncybunny]

Thanks.

So you would put an emphasis on repeated popular phrases, rather than seek possible 'gold' from less common keywords.

[tangor]

Frequency always is a clue. If widgets comes up more frequently than wadgets, you go for the widgets!

Secondary is adjective/adverb of widgets. If yellow widgets as a phrase is more popular than green widgets... etc.

Came back to add:

This ain't rocket science. Google searches for words. Users enter words. You optimize for the word(s).

If the words fit your site, you'll be found/displayed.

That simple... and that HARD TO DO!