Help! - How to narrow keyword list?

This is driving me mad!

[dtribble]

Hi all,

I need help narrowing my keyword list. I've already brainstormed the list, expanded it and researched it using Overture's suggestion tool and WordTracker.

Now I've got a huge list of keywords in an Excel spreadsheet. I've ranked them by how specific they are to my site, by the number of searches and competing sites for each, but this still leaves a huge number to choose from. Wordtracker's KEI has also not been helpful as they are all low on the scale.

Any advice on how to narrow the list even further? Is it a matter of doing a search on each term and evaluating the PR and optimization level of the top 10 results to see how truly competitive each keyword is?

What other methods can I use to narrow this list? Does there come a point where it's simply a judgement call?

Any help you all can offer would be greatly appreciated. This step is driving me nuts!

Thanks,
Damon

[Mohamed_E]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, dtribble!

Have you thought of targetting some of these keywords with internal pages?

Different web sites work in different ways, but many sites get many (maybe even most) of their visitors through very specific internal pages.

If I am about to start searching for information about widgets I may well search for "widgets", and may be happy to land on a home page and navigate from there.

But once I know that I want to buy a Brand B Model 123-a blue widget with a fuzzy border that is what I will search for, and will hope to land on a dedicated page.

[jim_w]

>>This is driving me mad!<<

And for some like me, it is a pretty short trip! ;-)

Mohamed_E is right. I just started sending certain KW's to internal pages to see if sales increase. This also helps me to see if the visitor clicked on an ad or not for these internal pages get very few direct visitors from SE results.

[dtribble]

Thanks for your responses. I actually was planning on targeting my home page and four internal pages, each with separate keywords.

The problem still remains that the list which could apply to each page is still very wide. Each term gets lots of searches and has quite a bit of competition in Google. How well-optimized this competition is remains to be seen.

Any more ideas on ways to choose my final 2-4 keywords per page?

-Damon

[mona]

dtribble, it looks like you're on the right course.

Is it a matter of doing a search on each term and evaluating the PR and optimization level of the top 10 results to see how truly competitive each keyword is?

Yes and no. You don't have to check out every KW phrase. Just look at the ones with the most searches per month.

Does there come a point where it's simply a judgement call?

Yes, to a certain degree. After doing this for a while, I've started to just get a feel for choosing KWs. Have you read Brett's Theme Pyramids [searchengineworld.com] yet?

Very good stuff here, dtribble. Read it and make it your friend:) This should will help you narrow down your list. And hey, welcome to webmasterworld!